2006 rhymes with slicks!

One reason why I like New Years so much is for all of the lists & the year in review stuff. I decided it would be fun to get in on the action. I went through the pictures I've taken during this year, so here is a review of my top 5 favorite pictures from 2005.

Some funny pictures were taken right at the beginning of the year. Perhaps the funniest part was that they were taken during the biggest snow storm in a really long time, which fell on Kate's birthday, causing 5 or so people to get stranded at our apartment.

Number 1: Kate enjoying her birthday breakfast after waking up to 3 feet of snow.


Number 2: We hosted a "Funny t-shirt & Karaoke Party." This picture was taken as the night wrapped up, and people (Helen, Losure) began devouring Heekin & Losure's birthday cakes with their hands. Poor, innocent Gillian can do nothing but watch from the background.



Number 3: At Caitlin's graduation party this spring, Caitlin celebrated the way the Melias do best...with a bit of beer & then putting on the infamous jacket that her mom bought (and supposedly wore) in the 80s. The only sad thing about this picture is that you can't see the fringe hanging off the sleeves or the zebra print on the inside.


Number 4: One hot night this summer Losure, Pete, Caitlin, & I went to my house to swim. Losure revealed that he was in a sychronized swimming group as a young lad, and did his best to remember his "Little Mermaid" routine for us.


And finally,
Number 5: I fell asleep on the couch. I moved my foot into a lit candle. My blanket & sock caught on fire.

HAPPY 2006!

Who is the stupid now?

I miss college a lot.











Why does Losure look so bizarre in all of the pictures I have of him?

Grandma got run over by a reindeer

Tonight I discovered MySpace. Oh my god, that thing is cool. I don't like change...I had a hard time even looking around on the site because I'm a friendster & facebook kind of girl. But then I was stumbling on profiles of people I hadn't talked to in 6 years, and it was kinda of neat to see that people had changed since they were 17. I found some profiles of people I went to college with as well, and realized that people who were seniors when I was a freshman are 27 now. My mental math is horrible.

I must go drool over Tom Brady now.


We make a hot couple. And check out the bling he gave me!

Buddy the Elf, What's your favorite color?

Last night I got to sit back on the couch & watch the 11 o'clock news with my parents and a 40 year old Japanese woman.

Not only did I get to see footage of the aforementioned Mr. Day in court for his arraignment today (charges included lighting a cigarette in the bathroom, interfering with flight attendants, and kicking the backs of passengers' seats), but I was also surprised to see my town on all of the Boston news stations. I had missed all of the excitement, but my town is in a bit of a tiff right now.

Apparently, the administrators at the middle school are trying to "get rid of" Christmas. The principal got word of the selection of songs from Jesus Christ Superstar that were to be sung at the Winter concert this past week, and said that they couldn't sing them because they were religious. There was also some play put on by the middle school, and they made the students refer to the Christmas tree as a magical tree, and the elves in the play had to have their hats changed from red and green to white and green.

This whole issue makes my blood pressure go up more than...ummm, I can't think, but it goes up a lot. I completely see how people are annoyed with the administrators trying to avoid mention of Christmas in school stuff. Because the fact is, it's not a holiday tree, or a magical tree...it's a Christmas tree. I wrote about this whole thing when I first started my blog a year ago. I do like it when people acknowledge that not everyone celebrates Christmas, and are sensitive of that, but if you mean Christmas, you should say Christmas. When Kate and I bought our Christmas/holiday/magical tree a few weeks ago (at a church nonetheless), the guy selling it wished up Happy Holidays. Now theoretically, people buying Christmas trees celebrate Christmas. I think that's an ok time to wish people a merry christmas. But for a talk show host to show you how to make a red and green holiday wreath? That's clearly Christmas, so don't try to pass it off as recognizing all holidays.

So yeah, back to Medway. The whole thing could have been a lot more easily settled if they hadn't allowed them to put on a play that involved elves and a Christmas tree in the first place..because you know what? That's Christmas. So by trying to make kids call it a magical tree, and taking the red out of the red and green elf hats, you're really not fooling anyone, and obviously that's going to upset people. I think it was completely stupid, not to mention insensitive, to have a Christmas tree, elves, and Jesus Christ superstar in a winter concert anyway.

So now we've got live reports outside of my old school, while a group of kids and parents are standing out there with protest signs & singing christmas...er, magical carols. And to top it off, Jerry Falwell's group that's trying to protect Christmas (the liberty something or other) is getting involved too. Hooray for Medway.

And as I reread this, I'm realizing this is a very negative way to go into Christmas eve, so I apologize. It's not that I dislike Christmas at all. I dislike the fact that I don't get to enjoy it the way I'd like to, and I know that makes me a little scrooge-like. But I've always been hyper-aware of people's attempt, or lack of attempt, to recognize other holidays. Hanukkah is not at all a major holiday. It is a little speckling of a holiday, and is really mostly for kids. Adults don't exchange presents typically. So I don't really care that Christmas gets all the hype around now...if not for the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans celebrate it, then because of the fact that it's a major holiday for Christians. But I just get upset when people are insensitive to the fact that I don't celebrate it. I get a little annoyed when I get cards, especially from people who know me, that wish me a Merry Christmas.


However, as it is 15 minutes until Christmas Eve, I do wish anyone who celebrate it a very merry Christmas. And if you don't, I wish you happy movies/Chinese food/skiing/or other ways to enjoy the usually crowded places minus the crowds.

"Burn dust, eat my rubber!"

Oh Howie, Howie, Howie. How far you've come since the days when you played at Union twice a year because no one had heard of you.
And now, making headlines on cnn.com. Way to go.


Howie Day arrested for in-flight rowdiness

Friday, December 23, 2005; Posted: 2:20 p.m. EST (19:20 GMT)

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Howie Day was arrested at Logan International Airport for rowdy behavior on a Boston-bound flight after he became intoxicated from a mix of alcohol and a sleeping pill.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/12/23/people.howieday.ap/index.html


I had a nice first week of vacation. I babysat a bit, did some shopping, & visited my first graders for "pajama day." I got to wear pajamas & my new pig slippers for the whole day, which is really the best way to work. The kids were cute & a few of my favorites told me not to leave again, & it was so much more fun being there and knowing I was just there visiting and not really working.

Christmas usually stresses me out, for completely different reasons from the way it makes most people stress, and I have to admit that it hasn't been as bad this year. I can't figure out exactly why, especially since the whole "season" started before Halloween this year. This week I got Gillian to watch one of my favorite movies with me, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. God, that movie will not get old. I can just sit here and think about certain scenes and start laughing. I did just that when I wrote the title to this post.

This post, by the way, is completely pointless. I thought I had something to write about, and now I can't think of it.

My parents get bored now that my brother & I have moved out, and they like to have foreign exchange students every once in awhile. So a few weeks ago I was talking to my mom, and she told me that they're going to have a Taiwanese student for a couple of weeks right around Christmas.

And that it's a forty year old woman.

I'm meeting my Medway friends for dinner tonight, and then heading home for a few days, so I should be arriving right around the same time as her. It should be interesting. She's a teacher in Taiwan, and my mom expects we'll have some things to talk about. Hoo-ray.

The coolest part though is that my parents just re-did my brother's bedroom to turn it into a guest bedroom. I'm not sure what they think this woman will do in there, but they don't want her to mess any of the new stuff up. So I get my brother's room while I'm home, and she gets my room. I'm thrilled that whatever messing up she was going to do in my brother's room, now she can do in mine.

And they wonder why I never seem to get along with the students they host.

Aloutte, something aloutte...aloute jounte plumeraaaaayyyyy (that's how it sounds in my head)

Today was my first day of vacation. I'm sort of on vacation until June. But don't tell my roommates, they hate me.

I finished my last day of first grade on Friday. Six and seven year olds are typically pretty self-centered, so I was really surprised that a lot of them seemed sad that I was leaving. They made a book for me with letters to me, which was really cute, and they made a wreath with their school pictures. Which is cute, but I'm not really sure what to do with it. Right now it's hanging in the living room. Pictures later perhaps.

The best part of Friday though was the gifts. I didn't get much...the school actually has a policy about giving gifts, and it's not allowed. A few parents broke the rule and gave me something little...but the best thing--the thing I've been looking forward to since I played school in our backyard shed when I was 7--was the "A + teacher" bag. With a shiny red apple on it. And a candle that says "teachers have class." I think I've officially made it into the education world.

So now I'm on vacay. I'm gonna do some subbing and some babysitting, and then I start classes at the end of Jan. And even then I'll have a weird, definitely non-working, schedule.

I celebrated today by getting absolutely nothing done. I found this neat website called futureme.org, where you can send emails to yourself or other people up to thirty years in the future. So I sent myself one, so I can be depressed when I haven't fulfilled any of my expectations. I also sent some emails to some friends, so 15 or 20 years from now you might be getting an email from you. I hope we haven't had a falling out, or that would be really awkward.

This weekend was sort of random. The "Holiday Soiree" we planned turned into some people coming over to hang out, and then we went to our new favorite bar, the Beacon Hill Pub. I ran into someone from a grad school class (she's weird though, so I didn't say hi). We ran into some um, friendly neighbors, otherwise known as the pieces of shit on Halloween. I ran into some guy from Union who I didn't recognize for the life of me, who remembered my name and said I made out with his visiting friend in the basement of a frat. And we ran into like 8 other Union people. Kate saw the bartender she's in love with, and that was nice because it took her mind off of the fact that her current singer obsession, Matt Wertz, is a Jesus-lover. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

You're the meaning in my life, you're the inspiraaaaation

Things have been crazy. I finished my last take-over week last Friday, and turned in a major project for my practicum last Thursday. Then just as those two things wrapped up, I had to get in gear to turn in my portfolio, which is the culmination of the elementary ed. portion of my master's, and the equivalent of doing a master's thesis, though I don't think they're at all equivalent. I'd much rather do the portfolio.

Anyway, when you see the pictures of my room in its current state, you won't question why I haven't blogged much in the past few weeks. I clearly need to get myself together a bit. I intend to do that on Friday, after my final day of being a student teacher.

Since my portfolio brings together everything I've done in the past year and a half, I went through all of my boxes and binders and folders and notebooks and sorted it all into my infamous piles.

My comfy cozy bed? Covered in piles.






My nice shiny floors? Covered in piles.



My room has that general "What the hell happened here" look going on right now.






I haven't been that stressed out though. It's not that anything's really hard, it's just a lot of little, sometimes tedious things, that I don't want to do. I have had lots of breaks. Last night we decorated our ugly Christmas tree, while Kate baked brownies. It was really quite the night.



The prettiest part is the star. Something doesn't look quite right.

Charles in Charge

So today I started my first day of my take-over week. Which would've been fine, except yesterday was the first snow of the year. And the fact that I went to school this morning completely forgetting that 6 and 7 year olds come to school decked out in snowpants and suits.

They have to take off their boots, snow pants, jackets, hats, and gloves in the morning when they come in.

They have to put on their boots, snow pants, jackets, hats, and gloves when we go outside for recess at 11.

They have to take off their boots, snow pants, jackets, hats, and gloves in the morning when they come in at 11:20.

They have to put on their boots and snow pants, and carry their jackets, hats, and gloves when they go to lunch at 12:55.

They have to take off their boots, snow pants, jackets, hats, and gloves in the morning when they come in from lunch-recess at 1:30.

And they have to put on their boots, snow pants, jackets, hats, and gloves when they leave school at 2:40.


In between all of that, the toilet in our bathroom overflowed and spilled out onto the bathroom floor.


I tried hard to keep a smile all day, even though we wasted about an hour of the day just dressing and undressing. It was a mess. I tried to set up the routines to keep it mildly organized, but i had about a third of the class running around in socks and showing off their cool new snow pants with suspenders. Finally,at 2:38, two minutes before the dismissal bell, I actually gave up for about a minute, before I snapped back and realized I was the person completely responsible for making sure they all actually got out the door & went home.

Oh my god.
And it's going to snow overnight again tonight...

God bless the snowpants.

SNOW

I'm entering the final 2 weeks of student teaching. This week I have my second "take over" week, which is requiring a lot more effort than I remembered from the first one. I hate effort. The end of student teaching also means the two culminating projects thingies for the elementary ed. part of my master's, so I've entered my usual "I-Haven't-Done-Anything-In-Months-So-Now-I'm-Going-Crazy" mode.

I had amazing intentions for this weekend. I figured all Saturday I would finish my lesson planning for school this week. And all Sunday I would work on my two projects for my class. In the breaks that I would inevitably take, I would be productive and do some returns, go food shopping, hit up the public library to get some books I need for first grade, and clean my room.

But then I realized I didn't want to do work on Saturday. I wanted to sit with my computer on my lap and watch TV and eat pumpkin seeds. I probably should have had bon-bons, but we never seem to have any.

Eventually I had to take a break (because I couldn't find anything on TV), so I hopped in my car to go to the library and supermarket. The library was a success. The supermarket was not. Before I even parked, I hit a car. I spent another half hour finding a place to park and exchanging insurance info. The Ghetto Basket was a fucking zoo. Someone in the store later told me to never go on the 3rd of the month because it's the day when everyone gets their checks. The reason I hit the car in the first place was because I had 19 cars all coming at me to try to turn down the same aisle, and 2 families screaming in Portuguese at their kids who were running around like they were on crack.

It could have been worse. I could have driven into a ditch like my roommate. It was a bad weekend for the cars/rental cars of 9 acadia.

Today was supposed to be productive, but I've watched about 11 hours of the weather channel. I'm hoping for a snow day on Tuesday, and the meteorologists won't give me definite answers on the storm. So I watch the weather map again and again myself to try to predict the path of the storm. When I've had enough of teaching, I'm going to become a forecaster on the weather channel. That would be so cool.



For the time being I put on my good luck snowman socks. Come on snow!