Vay-cay-shun

When I invent my own planet with my own customized weather (90 degrees and up for 2 months, 84 degrees for 6 months, 70-75 degrees for 2 months, and blizzard-like conditions for 2 months), I'm also going to redo how banks work. There's going to be an express line, just like there is in the supermarket. In the supermarket, you get to go in a special line if you only have a few things. It should be the same at the bank...if you have something that you know takes 2 minutes or less, then you should be able to stand in a separate line. I had to stand in the line at the bank for 35 minutes, to do something that only took a little over a minute. It made me mad while I watched people hog 5 minutes with the teller.

My new planet will be so cool though. Besides better banking, frosting will be a good source of calcium and contain all the necessary vitamins to keep you strong and healthy.

And in other things that are cool, check out the blow up santa that my neighbors had on their porch:




I realize it's tough to see past the conglomerate of wires that cannot possibly pass any safety codes, but if you look closely you can find santa. The sad part is that during the month of December, the neighbors only had him inflated a handful of times. I checked most nights out my window before I went to bed.

Tomorrow I leave for a mini-road trip. I'm headed to Philly to visit Molly for a couple of days before I make my way to visit Kerrin in Connecticut! Who knew Philadelphia was 6 hours from Boston? Certainly not me. Turns out I was forgetting about NY and NJ. Who needs those states anyway.

V-A-C-A-tion! (Is almost here)

I'm not in teaching for the presents, I swear. But this time of year, right before vacation, it is nice to get some acknowledgement from the parents (and the kids who are old enough to put on their shoes themselves) that they appreciate all the effort you're putting in. And many have been bringing in gifts over the past week. However, the gifts are mostly coming from some of the really sweet, cooperative kids and parents, and not from the ones that make me lose sleep and want to put my head through a wall. But, of the ones who have already brought things in, I've been extremely surprised by the generosity of some of the parents. Some parents spent a combined $100 on the two teachers I work with and me, which was way over the top, and this sounds pretty cheesy, but the nicest gifts I've gotten between this year and my student teaching were cards with anecdotes about how the child liked or appreciated me.

Don't get me wrong though, I polished off the box of chocolates in a day and a half, and I can't wait to spend my visa gift card on a 30 pack of beer.

I got a shiny new camera from my parents for Hanukkah, so you get to see some updated pictures...like random pictures I took during the 3rd consecutive hour of sitting on my couch at home, the festive appearance of our apartment, and our new jumbo TV which has aired "Mean Girls" at least 3 times in the last two weeks.









Tomorrow is the last day of school before VACATION!!! I'm pretty excited. After tomorrow, it's a whole lot of sleeping past 6:11, sitting in PJs until noon if I want to, and visiting Molly and Kerrin! Hooray.

Mr. Brady

I can't sleep, so I thought I'd share the happy announcement that I saw on the news an hour ago...



That picture is no more!

Tom Brady is back on the market!

I think Al Gore was right about global warming.

Why is it like 60 degrees in the middle of December?

So, I head out to my car this morning and realize:

1)I have a $40 ticket for apparently parking on my street without a permit.It's not a huge deal, since my sticker is on my car, but it's annoying that now I have to go appeal it, just because some traffic guy (badge number 322) didn't look closely enough.

And 2) My car key broke and fell off somewhere. I found the biggest piece of it in the hallway of the apartment a few minutes later, and was off to work.

...Where I found out that the assistant director had not forgot (as I assumed she had) that I still needed to have a physical to work. And that my paychecks would be withheld if I don't get one in 3 weeks. Have I mentioned how much I hate the doctor? Hence why I haven't gone in 6 years. I had a bad history of getting nervous and throwing up on the table every year until I was 13. True story.

And then we had Abby's birthday in school. And her mom had hyped up her birthday so much since September, that Abby became the three year old version of a Bridezilla. No one was allowed to touch the balloon on her chair, and for awhile, no one was even allowed to look at it. No one was allowed to decorate her birthday sign. And no one was allowed to play "birthday" in the dramatic play area. And she asked us every 2 and a half minutes if it was time to eat her yellow cupcakes yet.

The only saving grace to the day was when the Biter's mom told me that that their dear sweet biting and spitting son told his dad he has a crush on me. I don't know how, or why, since besides the fact that he's bit and spit at me, all day long all he hears from me is "You cannot hit your friends," and "You cannot wear dress-up high heels during circle time."

"Irregardless"

So, we got a Christmas tree for our apartment yesterday, and despite the fact that the upcoming holiday makes me mildly miserable for about a month and a half each year, I have to admit that it's a pretty good looking tree. Of course, this is also in comparison to our sickly, scruffy, Charlie Brown tree from last year:


Last year's tree had trouble standing up on its own

This year's edition is about 8 feet tall, and has so many branches and needles, that Kate didn't need to wrap lights around bare sticks like last year. I'll try for some pictures soon.

In other news, I'm thinking that I'm going to start knitting again. I desperately need a project, because I think I'm starting to drive my roommates crazy. I developed this knitting complex though. The idea of figuring it out again and learning how to fix my screw-ups again is making me all nervous. Plus, I'm going to need to go back to the knitting lady to get another lesson when I'm ready to end the scarf that I plan to make, but she scares me because I know that she knows I'm only knitting because I'm bored, and I have no intention of knitting myself a practical hat, and sweaters for my grandchildren.

And finally, if you haven't seen the movie Mean Girls, you're going to need to watch it. I watched it yesterday in its entirety, and I'm going strong in my second viewing tonight.

Yesterday one of my students bit me.

And then he kicked, hit, spit at my face, and ran around the classroom for me to catch him, at which point the biting, spitting, etc. repeated.

I don't get paid nearly enough to deal with that one. The family better give me a very nice present this December.

In other situations that I don't care to be in, I had another confrontation with the crazy guy who lives upstairs. Here's my question to you....if you go downstairs, not once but twice, and knock on the door, and immediately hear the talking inside the apartment stop, would you take that as a hint that the people don't want to do anything with you? Would you then hunt down each member of the apartment, and ask why they don't want to be friends with you? Would you ask for their phone numbers or email, even though they've told you "no" before? I walked in the apartment at the same time as him tonight, and said a polite "hi" and then "see you later" as I started to close my door. But then he asked, "Well, when is later?" Uh, that was my nice way of saying I'm done talking. Then the akwardness continued for a few minutes, during which he asked why we're ignoring him, and do we want to be friends with him, and can he have my email or phone number, and would we hang out with him if HE made the plans. It ended with me getting his email, and closing the door on his face because he doesn't leave when you say bye. I need to learn to be more blunt, but come on.

No more maple pie.

It sounds odd, but I sometimes don't like having vacations because it makes it so much worse to go back to work. Don't get me wrong though, I'll still happily take my vacations. I've been enjoying not having to make lunch, or iron clothes, or wake up to an alarm clock (though my body has decided--without my consent--that 7:30-8 is a good wake up time on vacation).

For Thanksgiving, we had a big international fest. We had people from Thailand, Taiwan, Germany, and even Texas. Almost half of the people at the dinner table had no idea what "pilgrim" meant, and couldn't even appreciate the Pilgrim hat desserts I made:

But I bonded with them anyway when I realized that the three girls from Asia and Europe enjoy the same teenage dramas as me, including but not limited to The O.C., Gilmore Girls, and One Tree Hill.

This weekend I got a cool new phone. It's so shiny. I'm definitely in love with it. It even slept in my bed the night I got it (I like the new electronic smell).




My body's going to be in for a shock at lunch tomorrow when I feed it carrots and a sandwich rather than stuffing and mashed potatoes along with brownies and trifle and pie.

Post-Thanksgiving

I'm so full I want to die.

The important stuff, like lollipops.

I love Thanksgiving. Not quite as much as Halloween, but it's right up there. What's not to love about getting together with a bunch of people, and being expected to stuff your face with stuff like mashed potatoes and turkey and gravy and stuffing and cranberry sauce. Not to mention, dessert.

It's a fun time to be in school too. It's the first little mini-vacation of the year, and from here on out it's an easy slide into June (or so I'm telling myself). Since more than half of my kids are from Israel, some are going to be celebrating their first Thanksgiving this year, and it's kind of neat teaching them about it.

Today in school I talked with them about what it means to be thankful, and I had everyone say one thing that they were thankful for so that I could write it on these Pilgrim faces they made. I was extremely impressed with a few of them, like Eitan, who said he's thankful for going to Israel on Wednesday, and Sam, who said he's thankful for playing with Grandma Joyce on Thankgiving, and a few that were thankful of their moms and dads or sisters.

But then, there were a couple who had no idea what I was talking about...so I got a kick out of writing that Abby is thankful for lollipops, and Edan is thankful for Batman, and Andrew is thankful for trains.

What are you thankful for?

Oh, and happy thanksgiving. Don't drink too much wine and wrap pants around your head as you puke. I hear it kills the day.

I found this and thought it was funny. Don't let it kill your appetite...

Don't get the black lung, pop

When did it get to be the middle of November? I feel like it was just Christmas and all that stuff. I'm very excited for Thanksgiving, and very excited for snow soon. Though it's hard to believe that it will be cold and wintery soon since it was warm enough to get outside for a few runs wearing shorts this week. This morning I saw sleds for sale inside Shaws, and it seemed weird.

Over the past week, I neglected to mention the fact that it was Ms. Gillian McCabe's 24th birthday. Kate and I made her an absolutely gigantic cake. And no, that's not orange poop on top of it...it's a cheesy poof, to commemorate the time(s) when Gillian housed an entire back of artifical cheese snacks herself.





This week it rained every single day. It made my class crazy. One day, the rain had slowed down to a slight drizzle, but the playground was way too wet, so we got the kids in their raincoats and took them out to the pavement and I chased them for 10 minutes just to get them to run and get some energy out. Yes, I'm pretty thrilled to have a master's degree and spend my mornings chasing (literally) 18 three year preschoolers.

It's 6 months until I turn 25.

Lost, and probably gone forever

The thing about my kids (my students, not future biological) that irritates me 65 percent of the time is their parents. I think some kids send their kids to preschool thinking they're going to get the love and attention that they do at home. Newsflash: preschool isn't home. I like your kids, but I have 17 others, and at least 2 are crying.

The biggest trend lately in my classroom is bringing in things from home to show, or to show only to a select group, resulting in crying by the other two-thirds of the class. There's no doubt in my mind that some of the kids spend a good 15 minutes every morning choosing one of their most prized possessions to bring into school. And while it's sort of irritating to have to spend so much time in circle saying, "And now let's see what Isaac has! Stand up and show it to us, Isaac!" it is nice for them to get so excited about showing their things to their friends.

But, inevitably, these valued items get lost somewhere in the room, or pocketed by another kid with the child put it down for a minute to play with something else.

And then the parents complain:
"Edan brought in two old cell phones, and now we're missing one. Do you know what happened to it?"
"Ellie has a special ribbon that she lost, and we miss it. Where is it?"
"Abby brought in her pink pig yesterday, and I don't know where it went. Can you look for it today"

Sure, right after I deal with Oliver, who's pooped in his pants for the second time before 10 o'clock this morning.

I ate nachos twice today!

I decided I like voting...it makes me feel all happy and American, but not in the "we're obese and want to take over the world and george bush is our hero" sort of way. Today was my first time voting in Scummies...I finally gave up the absentee ballots and registered in Somerville. And it was so much more exciting than in Medway, where everyone just went to the high school gym to vote. It took me until yesterday to figure out where to go, and it turned out my area got to vote in a fire station! And the sirens went off while I was there! It was pretty exciting.

I ate a pomogranate today too, which was equally exciting.

Last week I started going to bed by 10, and I got a solid 8 hours of sleep a few nights that week. Two mornings I even woke up before my alarm clock, just before 6AM, all set to go. I had too much going on in my head this week to fall asleep before 11:30, so I must be off to dreamland to reaquaint myself with my bed.

BIG NEWS

There's a pretty good chance that the next time you see me, I'll be well on my way to morbidly obese. It seems I've made it my personal mission to finish off the Halloween Butterfingers in our apartment. And after that, I'm already pretty sure my next mission will be the Almond Joys (minus the almonds--I pick them out). I seriously love candy.

But, the big news of the day is that after 2 years and 3 days of living in this apartment...drumroll please....

WE HAVE A FULLY FUNCTIONING PORCH!

I plan to take a picture of it soon. I only wish I had taken pictures of the entire month and a half long process. It's hard to imagine, but our apartment actually went from looking the crappiest on the street, to looking the crappiest times 14 on the street. It seems our landlord decided halfway through the construction to have the guys tear off the siding on part of the house (yeah, just part) and replace it. So you can probably guess how the apartment looked, with slabs of wood sticking out of the building as the porches went up, part of the siding off, and trash and other work materials scattered around.

I'd guess that our apartment is still the ugliest on the street. But, I'm curious to see next week when it's all done (supposedly, though I'm skeptical since it was "getting done" 2 years ago we were told), and all of the materials that are blowing around are cleaned up. I don't know for sure, but there's another house on the street that might be able to take the prize from us.


I realized I have no pictures of the old porch, except this one, where you can just barely catch part of it on the very far right. It's obviously the one that looks like it's 4 seconds away from falling over and ruining our fun playing in the snow.

Happy Halloween

I'm so stuffed with candy and pumpkin seeds and apple cider.

But in honor of the most fun day of the year, I'm giving you the gift of dogs in costume.

Check out this, for some really good costumes:


And these, for some pretty funny ones...











And I promise I'm going to try so hard to refrain from the costumed dogs for awhile.

It's like Christmas eve but better

I realize that this is like my third Halloween-related post in a row, but I am serious about my love for Halloween. We, err I, decked out the apartment with Halloween candles, glowing pumpkins and skulls, glow in the dark ducks in costume, skeleton lights, and other miscellaneous decorations on Saturday morning. We baked and decorated Halloween cupcakes, and refilled all of our bowls of candy. Kate broke out the whiskey and warmed up the apple cider, and then we were good to go.

And then we celebrated! We had some good costumes...Fidel Castro, who was looking healthier than he has in some time (and was asked about his health by a concerned T rider later on that night), a Walmart greeter, Betty Boop, a Jetson, a redneck, Superman, and a beer wench, among others. And we had a few (cough cough Kate cough Gillian) who refused to wear a costume. I wore my original girl scout uniform from 5th grade, but then felt like I had on way too much clothing when we went downtown later on in the night.











I'm a little disappointed that we don't get to do anything with Halloween at my school tomorrow, which I think is mildly lame. I kind of want to wear my Halloween socks (ghouls gone wild) but I don't have any shoes that will keep my orange socks from showing. So instead, I'm planning on bringing some Halloween candy for lunch, along with a Halloween napkin.

Off to bake some pumpkin seeds!

I made applesauce, again!

I like seeing kids and adults in Halloween costumes. But you know what I like even more? Seeing animals in Halloween costumes. Like this:



We used to dress up my dog in a Halloween costume...for about 4 years in a row (the costume was on the pricey side) my golden retriever Samantha was a ballerina. The costume had a tu-tu and even fake arms so she looked sort of like a human with a dog head. She spent all of Halloween night trying to claw it off, but we knew that she really liked pretending she was a ballet dancer for one night a year.


Yesterday one of my students spit at me when he was upset at me. Today at work I got a letter from him that read something along the lines of "Dear Stacy, I'm so sorry I spit at you, and I'm going to try very hard not to do that again. Love Matthew"

It was great. What other job can you get letters like that??

I made applesauce!

It's an exciting time.

I finally have my Halloween costume figured out. It was a stressful few weeks, with lots of trips to Target and even the nice costume stores all resulting in me coming home with more candy but no costume. But I'm pretty happy about it now. I just need a few more props and I'm good to go. I think it'll be fun being something other than a woopie cushion this year.



The excitement continued at work, too. This week, we got a class fish. It's red, and floats around all day. I'm pretty sure it'll be floating belly-up within 10 days. For one, it's on a diet, because I keep forgetting to pick a kid to feed it. And it's in a little bowl with a big opening, so I've caught a few kids experimenting by putting their hands in it. Today Isaac decided to pour some water from our water table (which has blue green food coloring in it) into the fish bowl "to give Winnie the Pooh a drink." So now the fish has water the color of the water at mini-golf places.

Then, since we're learning all about fish this week, I made part of the room to look like the ocean. We painted a little fish scene on the window, and hung up some ocean and fish art projects we did this week. I'm telling you, pre-school is the place to be these days.

Purr

I don't like cats. They walk in their litter boxes and then jump on tables, counters, and your face. They scratch you. They try to scratch you if they don't have claws. They make my eyes itch. They don't play with you like dogs do. You can't put them on a leash and take them for a walk, unless you're my neighbor and want to just look dumb. And they're not even very cute once they're older than a month.

You'll probably find this website funnier if you share my opinion of cats, but I think even cat-lovers might enjoy it. Take a look at stuff on my cat. Who thinks of these ideas for websites?

Oops

I kind of forgot about blogging for a few weeks. I think it's all of the excitement about Halloween. That, and I've been in a sugary haze from buying Halloween candy and then eating most of it before my roommates even get much of a shot. By the way, I'm trying to think of a good Halloween costume, so please let me know if you've got a winner of an idea. I figured two years of being a whoopie cushion was enough. Plus, I let one of the J guys sign it last year. It was among several poor decisions.

I did some massive cleaning today, as my floor was covered in a dirt/plaster film as a result of the construction going on outside my window to build our new porch. I found some old pictures, and I'm going to put them up once I figure out why my scanner's not working. So the whole point of this post is to say "stay tuned."



Thanks to Spaggies for this one

Gmail puts ads up that they think are relevant based on your emails I guess. I find it sort of creepy. But I happened to glance up the ad tonight, and saw this:

http://www.whizproducts.co.uk/en/


Their logo is actually Whiz freedom for when nature calls, whiz midstream for when health calls.

Gross. Who thinks of this, and better yet, who actually goes through the plans and makes it?

One more time, come on guys, one more time

Last week Kate, Jeremy, and me (and Kirk, who didn't really help) became the new high score on photohunt at BHP. It was one of my proudest accomplishments of the past year, probably right after getting my masters. So this weekend, Kate, Caitlin, and I went back to BHP and were dismayed, downtrodden, and nearly in tears when we found out that we had been bumped down to third place. We spent an embarrassingly long time stooped over the photohunt machine on saturday night, and even took a break to go down the street for a refreshment at Uppercrust, but we weren't able to beat the new score.

I would've marked the weekend as a total loss, except that I ran my second 5k earlier that day. It wasn't as much fun as my first one in June, but I had convinced my mom to start running this spring and she ran it with me on Saturday. About 3/4 of a mile into it, she told me she hated me and we split up. But when we met up at the end and were relaxing as they gave out awards, we were pretty stunned when they read her name as the winner of her age division. She went up and got her medal, and we never told my dad later that day that she was one of two people in her age division.

Halloween is coming. Our apartment has its first installation of candy corn. It's how I reconcile with the fact that summer is leaving.

The Story of the Snozu

I've got this fleece I really like. It's white. It's soft. It zips up and keeps me warm if it's between 55 and 70 degrees. It costs 12 dollars. The lining of its left pocket is ripped to shreds. It's called SNOZU.


The Snozu accompanies me to most drinking events.


I didn't wear it at all between June and September, and recently I took it off it's hanger and have been sporting it around town for the cooler days and nights. Apparently I've worn it to work a little too often during this first week and a half of school. As I was leaving my classroom at the end of my day today, my little three year old buddy Moses (yes, Moses) said "Wait! You forgot your white sweatshirt!"

I didn't even bring it to school today. It's nice to know Mo has my back though.

Hot people that are doctors? Count me in.

The great thing about my job is that I only work until 2:30. I don't sit down between 8 and 1:00, but being able to leave at 2:30 makes up for it. Of course, the plan is to do some tutoring in the afternoons so that I don't have to stop drinking Miller Lite, but right now I sort of sit around from 3:45 until bed time. Don't think I'm just wasting my afternoons away though--I find some things to buy my time though. For example, last week was "Twin Week" on Family Feud, and it was really exciting to see if the older twins would beat the younger twins. But, the catch of all catches was this afternoon, when I discovered a special called "Getting Into Grey's Anatomy," which is basically the best thing I have going on right now. I've been whining for the past 6 months that I wanted to watch Grey's Anatomy, but I've tried a few times to watch an episode and couldn't get into it. I'm hoping this does the trick, because really what I need right now is another show that I need to watch on a daily basis.




Oh, and yesterday on my morning commute, I saw a blind man walk into the side of a building on Harvard Street.

I don't really want to eat a baby

I thought I'd blog more often once work started because I'd have lots of good stories. And I do have lots of good stories, but then I'm also tired. School is fun though. About 90 percent of my class is really cute, 5 percent are cute, and one kid isn't that cute, but he likes to wear tights to school, so that at least makes him interesting.

Today we had our first of many visits from the Israeli dancing teacher. Dancing with 18 preschoolers was easily the highlight of the week so far. There's something abou watching three year olds try to shuffle their feet while holding hands with another three year old that makes it pretty hard not to laugh.

And speaking of small people, check out these. They're marzipan babies, and as far as I'm concerned, they're sort of creepy and definitely weird. There were some babies with a remarkable amount of detail below the belt, but I left them out knowing the mature level of my friends.

Why does summer have to diiiiiiiiee????.

There's something about early September and back-to-school time that makes me feel nostalgic. I'm not sure exactly what I feel nostalgic about, maybe childhood. I liked seeing all of the kids heading to school today for the first day as I drove to work, but it makes me sad for them (and me) that summer is over. Where did summer go by the way?

Tomorrow's my first day of school. I'm oddly not that nervous, maybe because I have no idea what it's going to be like. I imagine there will be a lot of tears (hopefully just the kids', and not mine). We had a "Meet the Teachers" morning for a few hours today, and 15 of my kids came in to see the room. It looks like a lively bunch. Did you know that three year olds are little??

My parents handed off a bag of Robin Eggs candy to me this weekend...I have a feeling it's been sitting in the cabinet since the spring. Regardless, it didn't stop me from eating a third of the candy bowl after dinner tonight because the color ratio was off, and it looked funny with so many yellows and whites in the bowl. I have an odd pain in my chest now. If it's a heart attack, I'm calling in sick tomorrow.

I can almost smell the paychecks

My 20 or 21 consecutive years of education is officially over, and tomorrow's the day I enter the working world. It's really weird. I've picked out my first day of work outfit, and had a dream last night that I forgot what I was going to wear and decided on jeans and then felt dumb for the whole first day. I hate the idea of starting to work for the next 40 years of my life or so, but I was pretty, pretty bored all this past week on vacation. There was only one good beach day, and our internet and cable were on and off all week. It was hard, really. What, no sympathy from all of you working people? Well ok.

I feel like I'm getting ready for my first day of school. I thought carefully about what to bring for lunch and what to wear, and just packed my bag with my brand new notebook and a pen I like. I'm kind of nervous, but mostly because I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing in the meetings all day tomorrow, and I don't like not knowing anyone else there. It's pretty similar to my first day of first grade. Except that my mom made my lunch. I'm still bringing the same old PB & J and an apple though...You can't go wrong the classics.

Goodbye Unemployment

Today I was offered a job, and I'm planning on accepting it tomorrow. I'm a little excited to say that I'm a preschool teacher, and come Labor Day, I'll have my very own class of 18 preschoolers. It'll be interesting, to say the least. I don't really know so much about teaching preschool, but I guess I'll figure it out as I go along. I figure my kids won't know much about preschool either, so it works out.

Last weekend there was a lot of celebrating because it was the end of grad school. This weekend, I'm thinking there should be a lot of drinking because I got a job. There should maybe be extra drinking because now I can afford to keep living in the city, and that's good news. Oh, and I don't want to drink alone, so who's with me?

I'm going to need a good reason to celebrate next weekend though, so get thinking.




I'm not sure what the promise is, but I hope it involves chocolate cupcakes.

Aufiderzein (i have no idea how to spell that)

Our internet has been slower than me when I attempt to run after housing a bowl of salsa and a bag of tortilla chips. It's made me really, really angry. I was hoping one of my roommates would get on the phone with the comcast people and fix it, but alas, the job was left to me--the one who does not work.

I had to embarrasingly hang up on the comcast people the first time I tried, because I couldn't find the modem and I didn't know what I was even looking for. After wandering around Kate's room for an akward 45 seconds, I told the lady that it was buried and I'd call back soon.

But then I tried again, and wasn't even tricked with a nice man named Lee told me to do something with the router too. Right now I'm feeling on top of the world. Not only does our internet work again, but I can find both the modem AND the router.

In sadder news, I think our cute neighbor is moving away. I saw the moving van and assumed it was for the new people moving into the third floor, but then I saw the cute guy going out to the van. Seeing as though those guys moved in right before Helen moved out last year, my suspicious is that it's time for them to head on out of Scummies...

I am back on vacation as of this week, and although I do enjoy having the whole day to do whatever I want, and get whatever I want done, I forgot how dull it can be. I enjoyed having something to do all day, and at the end of the day actually feeling like I did something at least mildly important.

The only fulfilling thing I did today was finally track down the lotion that I really like, after searching in half a dozen stores over the past few weeks. I feel like getting drunk. Anyone?

What happens in Cabo stays in Cabo

Ok I remembered the last bit of exciting news from last week. So, my roommate is a music fanatic, and knows a lot of useless lyrics and facts. As such, she has brainwashed me to not only like her music, but to memorize lots of random knowledge about her favorite bands and songs. Someone can mention Stone Gossard, and before you know it, I'm off on some tangent, throwing out stuff like "Brad" and making connections to Chris Cornell. I was really really hoping that one day something would come up in real life (eg, not on our futon) where I could all of a sudden babble out what I know, and impress everyone around me.

Last week, I went to trivia downtown with some people, and lo and behold, I heard an obscure question that I was able to answer because of all of the dumb trivia I've memorized! It was amazing! I never thought that moment would come.

I think that this past week I forgot that I'm not 20 years old and in college anymore. I've been heading out to the bar during the weekdays, and staying up past 4 in the morning on weekends. It's been rough. But fun. Losure's back in the big T, and amazingly he spent 12 hours at our place and nothing was broken! (that we know of). I have yet to hear the accident report from Pete. I imagine it's pretty lengthy, after 2 weeks of Losure habitation.

Well, tomorrow's a big day. I'm off to get ready for bed....

p.s.--3 days until the new season of Laguna Beach starts.

I think I can still feel my coffee

So, 3 big pieces of news.

1) I just got home and Kate left me a bowl of buttery popcorn. It's amazing. I'm not sure how, but I forgot dinner tonight. I think that's the first time that's ever happened. So the popcorn is good. And salty.

3) I can't remember what number two was. Maybe it'll come to me when I finish 3, and I'll add it in at the end. But, in less than 12 hours I will be done with grad school. That's two whole years--done! It is a really strange thought that I'll actually be done, since it still amazes me that I'm old enough to be done with college, or even high school. I'm so excited because I finished all of my work tomorrow so I can sleep in until 6:45 on Friday morning...and then never see the world that early for at least a little while. Hopefully not too long. I feel like I get to snooze so late that I decided it would be a good idea to go play drinking games in Brookline until 11:30. And now I'm sort of drunk, and gobbling up popcorn, and way too excited about finishing up to fall asleep anytime soon.

The plan is to go to school for the morning, and then the reading teachers get to leave at noon. I'm going out for lunch & drinks with the other reading teachers, and then beginning some more drinking around 2. It will be quite the day.

I have a feeling I'll be reaquainting myself with my pillow shortly after dinner time Friday night.



Done!

Caitlin and her birthday bonanza

Yeah! Pictures! And flattering ones!











And, happy early birthday to Caitlin!!!

Sunny D--Summer Forever!

I got into work today just before 7 AM, so when I finished bus duty a little after 3 this afternoon, I decided that I'd finish up a small bit of work, and head home to do work there and have a change of scenery. I'm not sure why it always seems like a good idea to leave and try to do work at home, since I inevitably get very little done. As it turns out, I had a snack and lied down on my bed to sort of regroup for a few minutes before facing my diagnostic assessment report (sounds fancy, doesn't it) head-on. About one hour later, I woke up really hot and confused, wondering whether it was 5 o'clock AM or PM, and if I had in fact fallen asleep in my work clothes and slept through the night. I was too delirious to think through the idea that I'm pretty sure I could never sleep for a whole 13 hours in a row, let alone miss dinner & a night time snack.

On Saturday we celebrated Caitlin's birthday and the fact that Losure is in town. After many games of flip cup, a shared pitcher of beer, and a few rounds of shots for every time we lost at darts, I was kind of wishing I could still hold my alcohol the way I could senior year of college. My body was in pain for a lot of Saturday. Well, also do in part to the hours spent Sunday afternoon running around the park playing wiffle ball, soccer, and hanging on the monkey bars. Caitlin sent some fabulous pictures from her birthday celebration evening, but I can't seem to get them online to be able to share.

I feel like my liver could be in for another beating this weekend...I sort of want to celebrate the end of grad school, and then end of 20 consecutive years of education that concludes on Friday. Come on, that's a reason for binge drinking if I ever heard one.

Yikes! Stripes! Fruit-striped bubble gum! (Name where that's from...)

Hooray! I've got just under two weeks of teaching at summer school left. That's just 18 more lesson plans to write (not counting the 2 that I already taught today but never got around to writing up the plan), 16 more sessions with my reading groups from hell, and just 9 more opportunities for Trevon to tell me it's "straight up cheap" when I ask him to stop singing songs about Jamaica in the reading room because it's making it hard for the other students to be good learners and for me to be a good teacher.

Losure and his fellow Texans arrived in the city this weekend. So things should get interesting...and by interesting, I mean drunk and broken. I was feeling under the weather this weekend and not up for painting the town red, but I plan on making up for it next weekend (which is also Caitlin's big birthday weekend). And, I hope to celebrate big-time the following weekend, which is Losure's last weekend, and also the official end of grad school for me. It'll be even cooler if I have a job by then. I'm not sure what to say when people ask what I do...right now I say I'm in grad school, but if I can't say "I'm a __ grade teacher" after school's done, should I just go into my explanation about how I'm comfortable with my afternoon tv lineup but still unsettled for the morning since Katie Couric's departure?

Well, I guess there are still a few weeks left to work on that response. In the mean time, I'm living in a dump of a room. Off to take care of that.

Been talking to my priest today

Well. It's been awhile. I figured I'd have lots and lots of stuff to write once I was "working," but I never want to be sitting at my computer once I get home from "work."

I do actually have some good work stories...like my little buddy Trevon who is 6 but probably weighs close to my weight, and has more attitude than I'll ever have. He was convinced I wasn't giving him as many opportunities to do some minor activity as the other kids in my reading group, and remarked to me, "That's straight up cheap!" Later I heard him say that an activity in the classroom "sucks." Luckily, the lesson was planned by a student teacher, and not me.

I went to Cape Elizabeth last weekend, and I was hoping I'd have some pictures to share, but for some reason I can't get them to work on here. I'd draw a picture, but I'm kind of lazy right now, and sort of in a food coma.

So instead, I'll post some special pictures, because....

Losure arrives this weekend! With real live Texans! Get your bids in now for what he'll knock over or otherwise destroy!





And of course, what is soon to come from a visit from Losure:

Worth a visit, worth a lifetime

Oh man. Killer of a week. It was too hot even for me. I'm surprised more people with normal body temperatures didn't die. I don't know, maybe they did. I didn't watch a lot of the news. Is this going anywhere? No, probably not.


I had my first observation as a reading specialist yesterday. It wasn't all that bad, but it's nice to have it over & done with because I wasn't really looking forward to having two professors sit and watch me and take notes. So the good news is that my second one is already coming up in a week from today. I like getting feedback about what I'm doing right or wrong, but I just don't like adults watching me do my stupid "teacher" act. It's sort of embarrassing. Luckily, there's no singing involved in any of my reading lessons.



I'm headed off tomorrow for my yearly mini-vacay with my fam & our Londonderry counterparts. Did you know that in Maine beer is like $1.00? Sure, you have to look at people with 4 teeth, and watching siblings make out, but it's all part of the experience.


I just know that if they'd open their mouths they'd be missing some teeth.

mmm sweatbath

I'm in my own personal Survivor contest as we speak. It's me versus the heat, day 1. I live by the philosohpy that it's so cold most of the year so you're supposed to be hot in the summer, and so I've decided that this summer I'm going to leave my AC in its box. Or, I was kind of lazy and it hasn't been too uncomfrtable up until now, so I thought there's no point in it since I've already made it through June and half of July. I figured there's really only maybe 5 or 6 nights out of the whole summer that I actually need the AC on to sleep, and so I'd rather have all of my windows open and unblocked for all of those other times. But tonight is sort of hot. I hung out in the freezer section of the supermarket in between writing lesson plans tonight. And I'm about to take an ice cold shower before settling into bed (no down comforter tonight!), as I drift off to dreamland, listening to the cruel hum of the air conditioner above my window in the upstairs apartment. Tonight's one of those nights when I have to sadly shake my head and admit that I wouldn't be able to live year round in southern Texas, like I undoubtedly think would be heaven every year around January. Oh well, it's only one night. Tomorrow night my roommates and I are having a sleepover in Kate's room. She doesn't know it yet, but it's going to be great! I'm bringing the popcorn and trashy magazines.



Oh, and a shiny quarter if you can guess what I'm wearing on my shoulder. Thanks Molly. And Kate for documenting it.