28 May 2006

To prove I have not, in fact, thrown myself out of a window

Yes, I am alive. Sorry about that. Zero internet access + scheduled weekends + end-of-the-school-year-craziness = no blog post. Never fear, I am still around and doing okay. However, it is nice to know that people care.

First, a school update: I will be teaching first grade next year. This is the consensus, though I have yet to sign a contract. (are they waiting for me to prove something?) It's not really what I want to do, but it's better than no job at all. Plus, I get to team with the current first grade teacher; he'll know the curriculum, and I'll know the kids. Not too bad. Until then, it's the final countdoooowwwwn! (do do do doooo, do do do do doooo!) Three weeks left with kindergarten... amazing. In those three weeks, I have to prove that they meet all the standards, prepare them for first grade, write report cards, and set up the end of the year program. Actually, I have to do that in only two weeks. Oh sh!t.

Anyway. then it will be off to Germany!! I emailed the Leucorea and tried to live with Jess, and they said no problem, but then I got shot down by the directors of the program here. I was like, the Germans said it was okay, for god's sake! How can you be more anal than the Germans? Oh well, it should be a good time. Despite the fact that the trip is not supposed to be a vacation, and I'm supposed to build a partnership with a school over there, I am so looking forward to getting out of here.

Other update-y news: Müs was just here last weekend, and we had a fabulous time. I was sad to see him go on Monday. Highlights of the weekend:
  • Guinness ice cream...twice!
  • Dragging him along to school and his acquiring a fan club of 6-year-olds
  • (Frozen) Cheez-its
  • Walking along the Mississippi
  • Sushi!
  • Uptown Minneapolis
  • Getting stuff 75% off at Borders
  • Making him illustrate the kindergarteners' weekly book
  • 'The DaVinci Code'
  • Ridiculing his ridiculously long hair
  • 'Wayne's World'...even though I fell asleep

Excellent. Doesn't it just make you want to come visit?

As I am in school (surprise), I should go get some work done before Irish dancing. Only 3 more weeks!

08 April 2006

Just to vent

I've been trying to buy plane tickets to get to Pamela's wedding pretty much all day now. I looked at prices yesterday and suddenly, it appeared this afternoon: a flight for only $170! (compared to the other ones I found starting at $240) Brilliant! And then... travelocity won't 'process my request'. Neither will expedia. Many, many times. And this fare doesn't seem to exist on the airline's website, or on other cheap fare websites. GrrrrRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr. I'll just keep stalking travelocity and/or expedia until they have to give me the cheap fare.

If I end up having to pay like $300 because these websites are stupid, I will be pissed.

On the positive side, I bought plane tickets home, went for a walk, had coffee and wrote two letters to folks in Germany today. Not bad for a Saturday.

07 April 2006

Adventures at The Mall

Today is the last day of spring break (apart from the weekend, which doesn't generally feel like vacation, as it instead feels like a weekend), and I celebrated by going to The Mall. Only the second time I've been since I moved out here, and I was looking forward to it; I'm not a huge shopping person, but I do get in the mood to spend some money now and again. So it was kind of a bummer when one of my favorite stores, for which I had TWO (!) coupons, had nothing good. Apparently it's that weird in-between-seasons time, and everyone is trying to clear out their winter stuff before moving in their summer merchandise. And the winter stuff is pretty well picked over. In the entire 3 hours at the mall, I ended up getting a skirt from H&M; not quite wedding-appropriate, but I can wear it for teaching.

Interesting phenomenon at The Mall: Even with an insane number of stores, I still ended up going to the same 7 or 8. Maybe I need to expand my boundaries a little.

Dreading going to school on Monday, as well as not having Internet at home. Oh yeah, my next-door neighbor (the really nice one with the wireless hookup) moved out. Sucks...looks like I'll have to go through the whole Internet provider crap after all. Until then, I'm enjoying updating my blog while housesitting and having the cat crawl across my lap every 5 minutes.

Seriously, is my life really this boring? This is sad.

06 April 2006

Fighting for truth, justice and the American way

Your results:
You are Superman
Superman
70%
Spider-Man
70%
Robin
55%
Batman
50%
Hulk
45%
Green Lantern
45%
Iron Man
45%
Supergirl
41%
The Flash
40%
Wonder Woman
31%
Catwoman
25%
You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.

  • http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/superhero
  • 05 April 2006

    And the verdict is...

    ...I passed, I think. The computer gave me the scores at the end of the test, but I have no reference values. So I got a 185 on reading and 190 on math, but I've not a clue what they're out of. If it's out of 200, then yay! If it's out of 2,000, then that sucks. But I think I did okay, at least on the multiple choice questions.

    The interesting part came in the form of the timed essay. Timed essays are crap, because who can put together a coherent, thought-provoking essay on a given topic in 30 minutes? I write very methodically; it takes me forever to get words down on paper. My essay had some complex sentence structure and advanced vocabulary...however, I'm not sure if the point got across. I even made some parallel between the Good Samaritan parable and the Eightfold Path (Buddhism); here's hoping that that's actually a valid point. I'm not entirely sure whether the Eightfold Path has anything to do with how to treat other people, let alone whether it belongs to Buddhism or even if it is eight-(not ten-, seven- or pi-)fold. Hopefully my essay grader isn't Buddhist.

    Now I am off to this store, to get all crafty. Wish me luck!

    04 April 2006

    This post brought to you by: Poor judgment!

    So I have to leave the house tomorrow at 7AM to take a freaking four-hour long series of computerized tests to make sure that my reading, writing and math skills are appropriately becoming a kindergarten teacher. I have to go to bed, but I'm not tired. I also have not really studied for this test. Hey, if I got over a 1400 on the GRE with about 2 hours of cramming the night before, I should be okay, right?

    This is all going to bite me in the ass tomorrow, I can just feel it.

    Forcing myself into bed now.

    03 April 2006

    Vaaacaaation!

    It's really been a while; I feel like I've been going through Internet withdrawal. Round #1 of catsitting went fine, though I discovered that I'm not really a cat person - or at least not a person who enjoys getting woken up at all hours by a stupid cat who likes to walk on sleeping people's heads. So now I'm catsitting again, for someone else, and thus far today I've had to not only clean out the litter box, but also clean up cat vomit. Off of carpet. Mmmm, lovely. At least I'm getting paid for sitting around someone else's house, eating their food, and going out for coffee once in a while.

    In other news: MüS IS COMING TO VISIT!!! I'm just a little bit excited. We're going to tour around, and eat ice cream, and share awful stories about our schools! Doesn't that sound like fun? Don't you just want to get on a plane and come on over? Seriously, I cannot wait until May.

    I'm planning on taking one of my eight sick/personal days (that's right, a grand total of eight) on one of the days when he's here...however, those eight days are now down from four to two, thanks to a persistent virus last week. And while I was lying lifeless on the couch, croaking that no, I don't think I'll make it in tomorrow either so you should call around for a sub, my director (who had subbed for me) felt it was necessary to tell me what was wrong with my classroom. Uh huh, okay, I'll carefully consider how to more effectively challenge each student at his or her academic level and how to check their work, just as soon as this pesky fever breaks. Feel the love from my coworkers.

    More news (perhaps) tomorrow, because I am now on spring break and have all the time in the world to do things like update my blog.

    20 March 2006

    TAREIBF

    I don't feel like expending the energy to put together a nice, cohesive blog post, so once again: Thoughts About Recent Events In Bullet Form (TAREIBF)!

    • müs is looking at plane tickets to come out here! That would seriously make my year. Someone to show around, someone to agree with me on how cute/frickin' annoying the kids are, someone to derisively tell me how barren my apartment is...brilliant. You better make it out here, müs; my expectations are now set far too high. If you don't come, I will break your kneecaps.
    • Teacher work days = fantastic. I got all my report cards done today, without having to kill myself over the weekend. Now it's time to brace myself for conferences on Wednesday and Thursday...12-hour days! Woo!
    • St. Patrick's Day for me turned out to be a series of poor choices. Not terribly awful, just rather disappointing. It involved: (a) hanging out with my TA and some of her friends from a local university... (b)...at a frat house. The Sigma Chi house. (Disclaimer: I had not agreed to this in advance.) It was ridiculous; frat boys are amazingly stupid and I am far too old to be doing stuff like this. Anyway, on with the list: (c) going to two very, very crowded bars with (d) drunk people wearing all kinds of tacky green 'Irish' stuff. And (e) cheap, gross beer because Guinness was $7 a pint, and (f) some of said beer getting spilled on my coat. And last, (g) an hour walk home in 15-degree weather because there were no cabs to be had. So yeah, it rather sucked. I stayed in the rest of the weekend.
    • You know that feeling when you're kind of getting sick but you do everything possible to stop it? I'm kind of at that phase. (perhaps due to the hour walk in 15-degree weather...) For the last three days, I've been downing tea like a Brit. However, thanks to this teacher work day and not having to stay up ungodly late doing report cards, I might be able to shake it off. Let's hope!
    • I recently bought the newest GBS CD as well as this CD from Nickel Creek. Both excellent, if you like my taste in music, but I don't think any of you does. Except maybe müs, for whom I'll be making a copy of the GBS CD anyway. I've been listening to the GBS CD pretty much non-stop since I got it on Saturday, except for in school today, where I had to turn it off because I was singing along and not getting any work done. Just to share: Track #4 from that one is just about the funniest song I have ever heard. I had to listen to it twice just to make sure I heard it right the first time...a bit raunchy but so amusing. (Why yes, I do have the maturity level of a teenage boy.)
    • I will be cat- and house-sitting from tomorrow until next Tuesday, so no updates from me. And then I'll be cat-/house-sitting again over spring break. (however, they have wireless internet, so I'll probably update) It's my new little cottage industry.

    Happy vernal equinox! Wouldn't 'vernal equinox' be a great name for a band?

    17 March 2006

    Happy St. Patrick's Day!

    Slainte!

    13 March 2006

    The two most beautiful words in the English language:

    snow day!
    Waking up to a phone call at 6am: Confusing
    Calling other people at 6.15am: A bit embarrassing
    Going back to sleep and not getting up until 10am: Priceless
    Excellent timing on the snow day, too; I was definitely not looking forward to going in to work this week. Now I can get stuff done, like registering for the Praxis (woo! $200 down the drain!) and reading something for fun!
    Self-esteem booster of the week (a.k.a., selfish bragging): I actually got a number of compliments this weekend. Granted, two were from 5-year olds ('I've never seen eyes like yours!' - I'm assuming that's a compliment) and most were from intoxicated guys at a dance club, but still. I'll take them where I can get them.

    10 March 2006

    50 Things About Me

    ...because I couldn't come up with 100. Maybe I'll post another 50 at some point; until then, welcome to my dark and twisted psyche.

    50 Things About Me

    1. I am ridiculous.
    2. I have been known to howl with my dog.
    3. Every night before I go to bed, I make my lunch for the next day.
    4. Small children think I am a riot.
    5. I once took the Myers-Briggs personality test at the career center at college. The woman who went over the results with me said she had never seen anyone more solidly introverted.
    6. I get really crabby when I’m hungry.
    7. #6 can happen very suddenly. I’ll be fine, and then literally ten minutes later, I’ll be ready to snap at someone for no reason. (sorry, Jamie!)
    8. I am very fond of Canada.
    9. I don’t dry any of my pants in the dryer, for fear they will shrink and be too short. This probably stems from a childhood of almost never having pants (or sleeves, for that matter) that were quite long enough.
    10. I generally only buy pants from this store, because then they will actually fit.
    11. I am a very bad liar.
    12. Natalie Portman and I share the exact same date of birth.
    13. I was voted ‘Most Intelligent’ in my high school class.
    14. I get very competitive at trivia games. Sometimes, scarily so.
    15. I would give one of my appendages for a dishwasher.
    16. I can be very stubborn.
    17. The surest way to get me to do something is to tell me that I’m not capable of doing it.
    18. In middle school, I was the skinniest and most geeky, awkward, braces- and glasses-wearing, frizzy-haired, picked-on kid you can imagine.
    19. Only now, at age 24, am I coming to terms with how I look.
    20. I put an extreme amount of pressure on myself to do everything well.
    21. I have this irrational fear of driving. I think it’s because I’m a bad driver and I hate not doing things right (see # 20).
    22. Name a movie that is a standard of the 80’s, and I probably will not have seen it.
    23. I tend to be thrifty. Okay, maybe just cheap.
    24. I despise Vivaldi.
    25. For the life of me, I cannot keep papers/documents organized.
    26. I spent about 10 days in England last year. For about 3 months after that, and without realizing it, I was still talking with a British inflection.
    27. I constantly have purple rings under my eyes.
    28. I have a weakness for musicians.
    29. I have only ever been really drunk once or twice. Both times, I could walk a straight line and carry on a reasonable conversation.
    30. I have never met the majority of my relatives, and I don’t know most of their names.
    31. I am the procrastination queen.
    32. I don’t own a pair of plain white socks.
    33. Once I get about halfway through a book, I’ll sometimes flip to the end and read parts of the last chapters. Then I go back and continue reading from where I left off.
    34. I love Cryptoquip puzzles: the ones where letters are represented by other letters and you have to figure out the quote.
    35. I harbor a secret ambition to get an MA in Linguistics from Cambridge.
    36. I also think that working for the NSA would be an excellent job.
    37. I know embarrassingly little about popular music.
    38. I could eat chocolate chip cookies every day for the rest of my life.
    39. I haven’t been on a real vacation (in which you travel someplace else in order to relax, not a traveling, see-everything-you-can-see-in-this-city trip) since I was a junior in high school.
    40. If I had the option, I would wear a fleece and jeans every day.
    41. I have a tendency to read emails and not answer them, until they either all pile up and I have to spend forever writing people back, or I forget about them.
    42. I am incapable of doing anything only half-way.
    43. I think dark chocolate is far superior to milk chocolate.
    44. I own far too many shoes.
    45. I think my eyes are my best feature (apart from the dark circles).
    46. I was born over 2 months early. They weren’t sure I was going to make it.
    47. I love to cook, but I end up eating pasta all the time because I’m too tired to make something halfway decent.
    48. Annoyingly, and for no obvious reason, I get extremely nervous talking to guys.
    49. In Germany, I became addicted to coffee. Since then, my tolerance for caffeine has only improved.
    50. I appear much more put-together than I really am.

    06 March 2006

    Randomness

    As it is Monday evening, and it's my only relatively free night of the week, I thought I'd update quickly to say that I'm still alive. Nothing exciting is going on; school consumes my life and report cards are coming up. (Again! Didn't we just have them?) Outside the job, a few (mildly) noteworthy events and/or comments:
    • I went out on Saturday night with my TA, her host mom (art teacher at school) and host mom's friend. A band that the host mom knew was playing at some club, and it was a good time! But rather weird, since there were two of us in our mid-20s and host mom and friend who were 50 and just under 50. Can anyone picture their moms bar-hopping at 2am? For that matter, can you picture yourself bar-hopping in 30 years, while your kids are sleeping at home?
    • Sunday, March 12th: My long-awaited return to the Irish dancing stage! There is some big Day Of Irish Dance celebrating St. Pat's Day, and I'll be doing 3 dances with my new school. The costume is quite excellent (though $50 to rent for one day!); I'll have to post a picture of it if I remember to take one.
    • One of these days, I'll also get around to posting a 100 Things About Me on this blog. Though I'm afraid I won't be able to think of 100 mildly interesting or amusing aspects of my personality.
    • I have to stop going to the grocery store when I'm hungry. Seriously, I've bought so many cookies in the past two weeks, it's rather sad. However, buying sushi for dinner was an excellent idea.
    • Clearly, I need a roommate or something if I'm telling you all about my grocery-buying habits.

    Time to go finish the laundry!

    02 March 2006

    Improved! Now with more sleep!

    Apparently all of my problems are caused by lack of sleep. After having a rather horrific week and a half, I came home from school early(-ish) yesterday and took a nearly 2-hour nap. Then I proceeded to make dinner, watch Monty Python, and go to bed at a decent hour. I'm feeling much better now. (not 100% better, but not in a weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth mood)

    For example: It's Thursday. One would hope that I would be hanging out with certain other people tonight, a certain person in particular. However, it looks like that's not going to happen. So that's kind of a downer, but there will be no dramatics, just mild disappointment.

    And now, to amuse myself and the Internet at large: the Four Things Meme, stolen from Heather and Jess and pretty much every single blog that exists.

    Four jobs I’ve had:
    (1) Lifeguard
    (2) Summer camp counselor
    (3) Wal-Mart cashier - still scarred for life by this one
    (4) Kindergarten teacher

    Four movies I can watch over and over:
    (1) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
    (2)Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    (3) Mostly Martha
    (4) Center Stage - somewhat predictable and cheesy, but entertaining!

    Four Places I’ve Lived:
    (1) [suburb of] Buffalo, NY
    (2) Springfield, OH
    (3) Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany
    (4) Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Four TV shows I love:
    (1) The Office - the only show that I absolutely have to watch every week...so hilarious!
    (2) Scrubs
    (3) Whose Line Is It Anyway? - too bad it's not on the air anymore
    (4) CSI: - unfortunately, it loses out to 'The Office' so I haven't seen it lately

    Four places I’ve vacationed:
    (1) Ocean City, MD
    (2) Vienna, Austria
    (3) Italy - Rome and Venice
    (4) Ireland - Dublin, Cork, Galway, Derry (N. Ireland)

    Four of my favorite dishes:
    (1) Steak (medium-rare) and baked potato
    (2) Chicken marsala
    (3) Chicken pot pie
    (4) Salmon - especially this dish that my mom has made with really thin pieces of salmon in a butter and cream sauce, with capers... müs, know what I'm talking about? I'm drooling now.

    Four sites I visit daily:
    (1) (No more) Adventures in Deutschland - *cough*stalker*cough*
    (2) Dooce
    (3) Google
    (4) Yahoo! Mail

    Four places I would rather be right now:
    (1) With friends
    (2) On a beach - with sand, not one of those rocky beaches
    (3) Sprawled on the grass under a tree (with leaves on it), reading a book
    (4) Anywhere in Ireland

    There you have it, Internet. Not at all witty or entertaining, but further proof of my unoriginality. Whoo!

    27 February 2006

    Today has been brought to you by...

    ...these three words: day from hell. I'm not even going to get into it, it'll make me too depressed. In summary: (1) I have zero control over my class and (2) The kids are learning absolutely nothing.

    Jamie, I might have overestimated when I said that I can handle another year of kindergarten.

    Bright spot of the day: My grandparents sent me a Christmas present: a huge fleece blanket! So when I'm wallowing in self-pity because I suck at teaching and am lonely, at least I'll be warm.

    *yanks self out of self-pitying pit*

    Time to go do some schoolwork. Surprise, surprise.

    24 February 2006

    You know you're old and/or a big dork when...

    ...you turn down a Fasching party in favor of a night at home, a movie and an early bedtime.

    B stands for Big Loser.

    23 February 2006

    Reality check

    There are moments in which I think my job is great: kids are learning and being nice to each other, everyone's listening, and their progress is amazing. (Case in point: One of the kids helping the new student ask a question in German.)

    And then there are weeks when I want to quit, lock myself in my apartment and live off of chocolate alone. Weeks like this one. Though it only has four days, verily, it bites the big one. Chalk it up to the parents who blame everything on that lousy kindergarten teacher instead of their kid not paying a damn bit of attention in class, the people who want us to now prove we are not just meeting standards but exceeding them, the people who've been asking why some kids can't read (they're freaking 5 YEARS OLD, it's KINDERGARTEN for god's sake), and some other totally unrealistic expectations which I am expected to meet. And I was just starting to not think about school every waking minute.

    Also, bizarre dreams this past week. What is going on in my life?

    Forget it. Bring on the chocolate.

    20 February 2006

    Thank you, George and Abe

    ...for giving us this long weekend. Without the two of you, February would be a long, cold month. Oh yeah, and thanks also for helping win the Revolutionary War and signing the Emancipation Proclamation.

    In honor of President's (or Presidents'?) Day: Name Your Favorite President! Come on, you know you have one. I'll go first: Woodrow Wilson. Brilliant man, had the idea for the UN before anyone else did, got the country through WWI, and alliterative name. Rock on, Woody.

    And happy birthday, Hetta! You now have the same age as the title of a television show! Have a great day and eat lots of cake. (by the way, that dinner invitation didn't work out...because I should have called 15 minutes earlier!)

    Not a whole lot more to say, except that it's back to school tomorrow. Without another break until March...right before parent-teacher conferences. So I am going to continue slacking off today for as long as humanly possible until I really have to write some lesson plans. Join me in becoming one with the slack.

    17 February 2006

    In which I sound like a squealy 14-year-old girl

    *Warning*: This entry to be filled with ridiculousness, since I am currently on a four-day weekend, have had enough sleep, and haven't done a thing all day. Therefore, I'm in a great mood. (bipolar, what?)

    I've been listening to this radio station all day, and it's like a constant nostalgia trip. Half the time, it's songs like REM's 'It's The End Of The World' and Blues Traveler's 'Run-Around' which remind me of high school yearbook (i.e., skipping class, racing wheely chairs, vandalizing furniture, fighting over Bruce the couch) and then it's 'Everyday' by Dave Matthews bringing back memories of college. Makes me feel old. I wonder if any songs will make me nostalgic for my first year of teaching. Doubtful; although it has its moments, it's not the most pleasant experience in the world.

    So I went out last night with two co-workers and a friend of one of them... it might turn into a Thursday night routine, since we were out last Thursday as well, and we're going ice skating next week. They are a riot, seriously. It is fabulous to be able to (1) talk to people over the age of 6, and (2) be sarcastic and somewhat witty. Of course, that's before I have a few drinks, because then I start talking too much and say stupid things. (at least I realize it and shut up) BUT...

    **edited because I've clearly jinxed it already, so really, what's the point**

    So...yeah. No concrete evidence, clearly, but I enjoy replaying moments in my head and blowing things entirely out of proportion. Because this is what I do. Suffice it to say I'm looking forward to next Thursday.

    12 February 2006

    What I have realized while house- and dogsitting

    • Having an entire house to yourself can be kind of creepy.
    • TiVo is fantastic!
    • ...as are dishwashers!
    • Small dogs are cute when they crawl up onto your bed.
    • However, not so cute when they get you up at 6.30 AM on a Sunday.
    • Not having your closet to choose your clothes from is a bit irritating. (sounds snotty and materialistic, but try it sometime...it's true)
    • Cafe lattes are fabulous.
    • It's hard to make dinner when you don't know what food you have or where everything is.
    • When you read the newspaper, you actually learn what is going on. (i.e., Mark O'Connor and Leahy are both here this week! Too bad I don't know anyone who'd be interested in going...)

    Right, lesson plans.