Woah!

Weird thing. I watched the Daily Show yesterday because Philip Zimbardo was on, and that brought me back to the old days as a Psych major. Zimbardo's a big (and totally creepy looking) psych guy from Stanford, and he started off by telling Jon Stewart how cool it is that he was on the Daily Show, and then, in a "surfer dude" voice, said his students would say "It's so totally awesome man," or something to that effect. Jon Stewart said, "Students at STANFORD talk that way??? I can see UNION College, but Stanford?!"

Then there was a big laugh from the audience, and J.S. said something like, "What? Is there someone here from Union?" But it was still a fun, though not very complimentary acknowledgment to my alma mater.

Here's the (long) link. It's in the first 30 seconds, so you don't need to wait very long.

Clickme

Tomorrow's my final ski day of the winter! Then, it's less than a month and a half until the pool opens, so that's exciting. And I don't really have many days that I actually have to teach in that month and a half, so that's equally exciting.


Also...

A very, very happy 26th birthday to Molly!!!! Sure, she's pretty old now, but Molly knows how to have adventures like no one else I know. Plus, she's really good at Photohunt.



...and a huge CONGRATULATIONS to Molly and Danny!!!!

Fill in the blank: Kate should be in a ______.

I'll get to the answer momentarily, because we went to the most amazing bar ever last night. It combined two of my favorite things--drinking with friends, and board games! The bar, right in Kenmore Square, had shelves of board games. After a pitcher of Stella and a round of shots, we delved right into a game of Chutes and Ladders. I forgot how much I enjoyed that game. You don't actually have to do anything.

After that, we played Taboo, which I LOVE. I can never get anyone to play that with me, or any of the other games I have stored away, but bring out the Bud Light and nachos, and you've got a captive audience that's willing to play an hour of Taboo. I spent awhile on Pete's team, and we were pretty good, right down to when I picked up a card, and for the first clue said, "Kate should be in a...." and Pete yelled, "CAGE!"



Which was, of course, the correct answer.

This is a song called Closet.

I'll start by saying oh my god, I love Pete Yorn.

Monday night I saw him at the Avalon, in probably one of the top two shows I've ever seen. Following Kate's lead, we pushed way into the front and center, and we were really, really close to him, and all of the hair on stage (5/6 of the guys on stage had hair that was my length or longer). Pete played all of the songs that I would have included if I could create my dream setlist, even one song that I really wanted to hear him play but thought there was no way he'd play. Unfortunately for Caitlin, when he played each song on my dream list, she got poked by me to tell her how excited I was to hear the song. Not surprisingly, she got fed up and left a bit early. :) Or something like that.

I took mostly pictures of the guy's head in front of me, but here are a couple:







The night ended way way way too late though (it was capped off around 12:30 by a stop in the 24 hour CVS for a new hair dryer), and I've had to get coffee every morning this week as a result. My roommates think that is not cool--caffiene has a pretty strong effect on me.

sunday night again?!

Unlike a lot of holidays, I think St. Patrick's Day is one holiday that gets more fun as you get older. Well, at least for a few more years for me, before it becomes another day where I just put on something green and pretend I'm a rare Irish Jew. I'm not sure why I like to get into the holiday so much, but by 2 in the afternoon yesterday, I had already baked shamrock cookies and met a guy in the liquor store who reeked of alcohol and asked if I wanted to go to Southie to fight him and have corned beef & cabbage. (I politely declined.)

This week I have a date at the bristol lounge in the four seasons downtown. I'm definitely a jeans & flipflops at BHP kind of girl, and ended hitting up two different malls today in search of appropriate attire. I settled on some new tan pants & a black shirt that's a pretty typical stacyshirt, but with a bit more sophistication. Last night I poured a beer on my Columbia jacket, which means I'm definitely wearing my dressy coat too. And, I'm finally going to wear my new-ish pointy black shoes, which means that I'm going to have to wear them tomorrow morning as I get ready to go to work, because I need all the practice I can get walking in them.

Do they serve bud light at the Four Seasons?

gross.

Today was a good day, for a few reasons.

The biter got strep throat & was out of school. How long does that knock one out, by the way? Can I expect a biting/spitting/whining/hitting-free remainder of the week?

There have been no new cases of lice in my class for a week now. We got a bit of lice in my room 10 days ago or so. It was sort of really gross, but it was a good excuse to wear my hair in a pony tail every day, and get rid of all of the pillows in my book corner that drive me crazy.

And, it was like spring today. I know I've said this before, but I'm all for global warming as long as people don't start burning up or anything while I'm still around on Earth. I never saw Gore's movie though. I have a feeling I should, at least to help get me not so excited for abnormally warm temps. Today, for the very first time in the 2 1/2 years that I've lived in this lovely apartment, I got to sit out on the porch and read after school. It was SO great. And long overdue.

Yesterday I watched Tyra pop an audience member's zit on her "show."





I'll spare you from the details about what happened, but it was horrifying.

So, want to hear one of the better stories from recent weeks in my classroom? Sure you do.

This one involves the biter (again, obviously). (And in cased you missed an earlier post, the biter is a 4 year old in my room, who I affectionately call the biter here due to the fact that he bit me a few months ago).

But first, the background information. I leave school at 3, and the assistant in my room leaves at 4. But some kids stay until 6, so from 4-6, they combine the three preschool rooms and have one or two other teachers. All of the kids go in one of the preschool classrooms, which is attached to my room by a really short hallway with a bathroom.

So shortly after 4 yesterday, they had a sub in the combined preschool room. She was doing a little group circle with all of the kids. The assistant director of the school walked into my empty classroom, and found the biter in there, by himself, and naked. Where were his clothes? They were in the bathroom, in the toilet. Yeah, the biter had decided to leave circle, go to the bathroom, strip, try to flush his clothes (flooding the bathroom in the process) and then figured he should play alone in my classroom for a bit. He's precious.

I went swimming twice this week, and am going skiing this weekend, and ordinarly I'd be impressed with all of my activity, but I ate a bag and a half of those chocolate eggs this week, and almost a whole bag of jelly beans. Just thought you'd want to know. I seem to remember posting about a jelly bean problem shortly before Easter last year, too.

I hate your guts, Tyra

Seeing or hearing Tyra Banks makes me want to punch a wall. And then punch her face, knocking her teeth out. And then scratch her until she bleeds.

I'm reminded of my hatred for her because America's Next Top Model was on tonight. But what I really hate about Tyra Banks is the Tyra Show.



It's where she talks about herself for an hour, to guests and audience members who probably don't care. And, she pretends that she is just a real, down to earth, everyday sort of girl.

I just don't know how her show has lasted so long (more than 1 episode).

And then...

And then my car broke down on the way to work yesterday morning. Not just died, but made a grinding, deathly sigh as it died. In the middle of Comm. Ave, during rush hour. Then I waited 45 minutes from AAA to come, and after 45 minutes they called to say that actually, their first towing company couldn't come, so they would send out another one, so it would be another 45 minutes to an hour.

Then, after an hour and a half, I stood outside in the pouring rain while the guy towed my car, and then continued to stand out there while I waited for the T. And then when the T came, one of my dollar bills was wet, and it jammed the fancy new Charlie Card machine, and the driver yelled at me. AND, she asked some other guy to pay for me.

I got to school two hours late but was there just as my class was lining up for the costume parade, and things only got better from there.

I got a chocolate chip muffin for the T ride home. I'm pretty sure it had extra chocolate chips in it, too.

I had a great afternoon nap while it rained, with the nap blanket--my favorite.

And later last night, I went out with Pete and Caitlin & had a lot of cheap beer, and a pink kamikaze. And nachos! With cheese dip and sour cream!

Annnd.....

Maybe you heard, but yesterday was ALSO the 25th birthday of a Mr. Michael Losure.

When he's not reliving his youth of doing synchronized swimming to "The Little Mermaid," Losure can typically be found spilling non-washable liquids, puking up lasagna and alcohol in a sink, or listening to "Mm Bop for 2(?) days non-stop. Happy birthday Losure!!!


Insert lyrics from the Disney musical here

It's been one of those days.

Excuse me while I go on a self-pity rant.

My contacts case just fell in the toilet.

One of the kids in my class shrieked--literally, shrieked--for almost 10 minutes because she thought she had fish sticks for lunch, and it turned out she had pasta.

One of the kids I babysat after work declared me a mean babysitter because I refused to let her eat her lollipop before dinner.

My car has had some rattley noise going on for a few weeks, and on my drive home today it started to smell like burning.

And I went to this giant teaching recruitment fair, with like 35 schools there, and a bazillion people looking for jobs, and half a bazillion of them were looking for elementary jobs. I got to have a mini-interview with an elementary principal. Upon which I froze. He pretended to be mildy impressed with my reading background, asked to hear about my reading philosophy, and I went totally speechless and started grabbing for words. I can totally sit here in my apartment and spew out an ok philsophy that sounds like I know what I'm doing, but I'm pretty sure I started with something about how it should be fun. He asked about reading assessments I've done, and my mind went totally blank. It was really, really bad.

But in better news, I'm having a second costume parade of the week at work tomorrow. My class did one on Wednesday, and the whole school is doing it tomorrow. Wednesday I dressed up like a queen, and tomorrow I'm going to be a baseball player. Getting in costumes in March sort of makes me want to stick around in this school for another 5 years.

Before I head off to bed, I have an etiquette question for you. So, say you have this neighbor, who is sort of crazy, doesn't pick up social cues, and makes you gigantic lasagnas. Then, say you read on boston.com that he was arrested (with two 19 year olds) for breaking into an MIT faculty club, in an attempt to pull another "MIT prank." And that he was facing up to twenty years in the slammer if convicted. Twenty! And then say, hypothetically, that his court date was this week. What's the polite thing to do? Do you make a lasagna as a nice gesture? Do you leave a sticky note on his door, "Good luck, don't drop the soap?"