hate mail

heidi, adriane - i'm not sure how you did it, but i congratulate you on drawing gwen (whom you haven't met) into you "lack of blog update guilt/manipulation ring."

so i was in san diego this past weekend with the debate team. they all did really well. without going into too much detail (because it would require a very long post about debate and all it's associated rules, terms, and procedures), our team did really well. one of our debate teams got into one of the final rounds, two boys placed in two different events, and another kid got first in his event. this was a big tournament with a lot of really good schools present, so we were really excited that T.J. got first place.

i got to spend 12 hours on a bus. which is a shorter trip than the one to the state tournament last year in reno--that was nine hours. if i go to the tournament in berkeley, that'll be 11 hours. oh well.

the kids are really fun and i love getting to be a part of that team. however, because we spend so much time with these kids, we (myself and sheila, the other coach) end up learning things about them we'd rather not know. the consensus among the students is that shiela is "the mom" and i'm "the cool aunt" or "the cool older sister." i think they threw the last one in there in a hope that i'll buy them beer. of course, one student told me where he buys his alcohol because they don't card. ever. that was disappointing. two students told me about the bet they'd made about the weekend that involved one of them "scoring" while on the trip. at one point, i got a detailed lecture about which girls at our school had the best body parts, specifically buttoxes. awkward.

I'M SO EXCITED TO COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!

i had to miss school friday and today because of the trip, so that's a hassle to come home to.

i have a ridiculous amount of grading. in my next life, i'm going to be a p.e. teacher. or a rock star.

i really don't have anything to talk about. i'm trying to think of something (anything) witty to philosophize about. or a funny story. or any story. or anything. i'm completely spent. sorry. hopefully i'll think of something soon and i will stop getting hate mail from an ever-increasing number of sources.

however, if'n you're bored, check out this site: it's supremely entertaining.
www.graphjam.com

sorry this sucks. a lot.

birthday

i'm going to rant. be forewarned.

i don't get the hullabaloo about birthdays. i literally had nothing to do with it. i had no part of my conception, and i really didn't help with the birthing process. i realize that birthday celebrations started in the middle ages to celebrate another year of life for the child, but this was when infant mortality rates were still super high, like in the 60th percentile (I have no idea if that statistic is correct; i just made it up. but you know...92% of all statistics are made up...). today, in the U.S. at least, infant mortality rates are significantly lower. we don't need to celebrate the fact that i haven't died yet. plus, i'm now several years out of my childhood. the whole thing is just weird to me. now, i'm not going to lie, i LOVE getting presents. i like the fact that my mom comes out for the weekend and we shop, and she buys me stuff, and i get to choose where we eat every meal. the rest of it... all day long, people tell you "happy birthday" and i have yet to figure out the appropriate response to that. "thanks"? "yep"? "don't tell me; tell my parents"? i usually go with the first, but it still seems strange. what am I thanking them for? remembering that it's my birthday? they really don't have to.

and I know the deal about how birthdays are a chance to celebrate the people in your life who love you and to be happy that they're in your life, but do you need to wait until october 6th to do that? you can celebrate me being in your life any day of the year. i'll let you. it's like that line from gatsby: "Let us learn to show friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead." now, i understand that the context is a little different, because in the book he's talking about how we should treat people when they die, and i'm not dead yet (ironic that i'm discussing this quote, in light of the original purpose for birthday celebrations), but the idea is still there.

i'm not anti-birthday, and I don't hate birthdays or anything. i'm not opposed to celebrating birthdays, giving and receiving birthday presents, people telling me "happy birthday," telling other people "happy birthday," going to birthday parties, having birthday parties, birthday cake, decorating for others' birthdays, or anything else having to do with birthdays.

i just don't get it. for me it's one of those funny little social customs and makes less sense than the others. i play along with it, and it's all cool. i just don't get it. so if i don't send you a "happy birthday" message on your facebook, and if i forget your birthday, please don't feel offended. i just don't remember birthdays. i'll probably remember your shoe size, what you majored in in college, what your favorite sweater was when you were 16, and what your parents do for a living, but i'll probably forget your birthday. hell, half the time i forget my birthday.

i just don't get it.

wait until you hear my rant about saying "god bless you" when someone sneezes. it's a doozy.

i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sor...

I honestly hadn't realized how long it had been since my last post (june 3!), which was my impassioned request that everyone read The Road, which is a belief i still firmly espouse.

so...summer was good. i relaxed and spent a long time in indiana, which was amazing. i loved being back there, especially since my parents now have a trampoline at their house. plus, my roommate alison came out to visit and we went to chicago for a few days. that visit just made me miss chicago A LOT. and my friend nicole got married, so i got to see most of my college girls. once i got back to vegas, i spent a lot of time reading and hanging out on my couch, which was AMAZING. call me lazy ("lazy") but i love sitting around on my couch watching tv and movies and reading.

i tried to read The Catcher in the Rye this summer, because it's on my book list, and my students always read it, but i couldn't get past page 50. i really just hate that book. everyone says i should have read it when i was younger, because it's written for 16 year olds and of course i'm going to hate it at my age. but i'm not sure i would have liked it when i was 16--the whole "i'm going to rebel because people don't treat me like an adult so i'll just show them how adult i can be" phase was never very appealing to me. i seemed like such a waste of time to waste energy on doing thingsi wasn't allowed to do when i could just wait two years and do them anyway. plus, i had a job and financial responsibilities at 16, which are two markers of adulthood. i'm not saying i was some paragon of maturity (i bought several *nsync cd's around that time), but i do think, that in some ways, i was a little more...grounded...than your average teenager. and reading back over that, i realize just how egotistical and self-centered that sounded. oh well.

speaking of *nsync, guess who has tickets to the new kids on the block concert on oct. 11?!?!?! i also purchased their new cd with very little shame. it's not the worst cd i've spent money on, but it's not great. it's a pretty solidly mediocre r&b album featuring 5 guys in their late '30s who are trying to reclaim the notoriety they had when they were in their early '20s. plus, my friend claire told me today that they're having their after party at LAX (a club here in town), and my friend lacey's sister lindsay knows someone who works at the door there, so we're thinking about going. 11-year-old me is completely insane at the idea of seeing DONNIE WHALBERG in person. of course, they'll be upstairs at a table and we'll be buried on the floor with the rest of the peasantry. i'm hoping that lacey will be able to get us to their table. one of her major talents is getting into vip areas with celebrities. (fingers crossed!)

school is going pretty well. actually, compared to last year, it's going phenominally (now officially a word). i have a new class--Modern lit Honors, and it's amazing. i love my kids in all my classes...i'm just having so much fun this year. so much better than last year. i just wanted to beat my head against a wall a lot of the time then.

i also read the twilight series, despite my fervent vows that i would never sink to such literary depths. and i loved them. i'm re-readng the last one right now, and have a bit of a mental countdown to the movie. i kind of hate myself for it. but they were good. and now i desperatly want a boyfriend. desperately. i'm not sure if that's because of the books, or if it's just time for my quarterly "desperate for a boyfriend" phase.

so i'm going to go grade papers now. or read Breaking Dawn some more. three guesses to which of those options actually happens. and there are only two options.

no wonder i don't have a boyfriend.

i'll try to be better about posting. if it gets bad again, adriane, heidi, light a fire under my ass.

and adriane, those kids ARE getting one hell of an education. (we have an amazing science department...)

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

this is not going to be an amusing post, but it will be serious and heartfelt, which is a departure for me.

I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which I started reading this morning. I couldn't stop reading it.

It is, without a doubt one of the best books I've read in the last few years, and easily in my top ten books of all time. I started reading it this morning during one of my finals, and I had to put it down because I started crying on page 55 and was still crying when I got to page 63. I decided that quietly weeping was probably a distraction to my students who were trying to take their final exam. When I got home from work today, I sat down and didn't stop until I'd finished the entire thing. By the end, I was weeping so hard I couldn't get my breath and I had tears (mixed with mascara) pouring down my face. I have never been affected so strongly by a book, which is saying something (I read a lot of books). I cried on and off for the next hour, and I had to stop talking to my roommate about it, because I got choked up whenever I tried. I tried to read the back cover to her, and barely got through it. It is amazing. I don't know if I have the words to describe how powerful and moving it is. It's at once agonizing and beautiful, hopeless and utterly hopeful. It's the most terrifying thing in the world, but also infinitely soothing and reassuring.

Read it.

Here's the quote from the back cover:
A father and son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. the sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. they have nothing: just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food--and each other. is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love.

Read it.

Here's the passage on page 55 that initiated my tears:
No lists of things to be done. They providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you.

Read it.

Please don't ask me what's so great about it--I'm not sure I can say why. I just know that I cried like I haven't since I read The Island of the Blue Dolphins in 5th grade, after I finished I was so exhausted the only thing I could do was watch the palm tree in the back yard swaying in the wind, and I still have a headache from the rush of emotions I experienced in (especially) the last 20 pages.

Read it.

To quote The New York Times, "[It] offers nothing in the way of escape or comfort." Be forewarned. After school today I stopped by my friend Pat's room to talk about the book. Pat's retiring this year, which means she's been teaching for at least 30 years, and she's read EVERYTHING. She's an English teacher, but her brain is reserved for AP and high honors classes. She teaches and challenges the best students in our school (who are intimidatingly smart, and by which I mean they're in MENSA). Pat doesn't get very impressed about literature. When I mentioned this book to her (I knew she'd read it), she gushed. Pat doesn't gush. I've never seen her speak so passionately about a piece of literature. She always speaks academically about books, and with this one, she spoke emotionally. That only bolstered my reaction to it.

Read it.

Be emotionally prepared for it, because it will put your emotions through the ringer. I don't want to say anything more, because I don't want to cheapen the experience I had with this novel with too many words. I hope you read it. I hope it impacts you like it did me. If you read it, and if it impacts you, give me a call or send me an email. I'd love to talk to you about it.

Read it.

is it really that easy?

have you seen the commercial for taco bell with the bacon club chalupa?

it starts out with two women out at the bar (ostensibly trying to pick up guys) and one woman shows the other woman that she has a bacon club chalupa in her purse. woman #2 says something along the lines of "why do you have that in your purse?" and women #1 replies "guys love bacon." then, there are three pretty attractive guys at their table trying to talk to them. is it that easy? alison and i were watching TV and when i saw that i told alison i'd carry bacon on me at all time. she said she would too, which is even funnier because she's a vegetarian.

that let to a conversation about bacon undergarments, including a bacon bra, which i termed a "bracon" (prounounced 'brah-con'). i also talked about bacon undergarments (a b-string).

this is how i'll find my future husband i guess.

i wonder if any specific brand works better than others.

i'm hot as hell, and i'm not going to take it anymore

it's 90 degrees out today. IN APRIL.

someone is pissed.

(she has red hair)

however, alison and i refuse to turn on the A/C because it's gonna get cooler tomorrow ("cooler" being the mid 70's) and we'll be okay then.

five p.m. is the worst TV hour on my tv. only when i'm downstairs. upstairs, I get abc family and I can watch gilmore girls, but we don't get gilmore girls downstairs (we've sacrificed to have BBC america--totally worth it).

i don't really have anything to say, but i hadn't updated in a while, and i was feeling guilty. let's see...i need to write a test tonight for In Cold Blood, but it's too hot. i just want to sit in front of the tv watching "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" because it's the only thing on and i'm too hot to morv, let alone think. actually, i'm not that hot, but it's a good excuse to avoid writing a test. I HATE WRITING TESTS with every last fiber of my being.

Will smith is currently wearing a neon yellow sweatsuit--the kind with the swishy material and the matching jacket that were cool in the 90's and which one still sees on grandmothers at the grocery store on tuesday mornings.

just saw the credits--i had forgotten that they were spray painted to look like grafitti on the screen. I miss the 90's. there have been few decades that were as tacky. don't get me wrong, the 70's and 80's were pretty bad, but they were tacky in an ironic sort of way. the 90's were just tacky. with no irony. which makes them awesome, because you can just revel in the tack.

now, this is the story all about how
my life got twist-turned upside down
and i'd like to take a minute (just sit right there)
i'll tell you how i became the prince of a town called bel-air

in west philadelphia, born and raised
on the playground is where i spent most of my days
chillin' out max and relaxin' on cool and all shootin' some b-ball outside of the school (skool)
'til a couple of guys, they were up to no good
started makin' trouble in my neighborhood.
i got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said
"you're moving with your auntie and uncle in bel-air"

i whistled for a cab and when it came near, the license plate said "fresh" and it had dice in the mirror
if anything, i could say that this cab was rare, but i though "nah, forget it"
"yo homes--to bel-air"

i pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 and i yelled to the cabbie
"yo homes, smell ya later"
i looked at my kingdom, i was finally there
to sit on my throne as the prince of bel air

a few thoughts on the lyrics to that song:

1. why does he decide to "forget" about saying that the "cab was rare"? does it really take so much time to say "hey, that cab is rare." what does he mean by rare? not cooked for very long? unique? and what are the odds that the license plate said "fresh"?

2. why does it matter what time he pulled up the house? he never told us what time he left philly, so it's not like he's trying to gain sympathy for his arduous journey. there's also a pretty big gap of time between 7 and 8. 60 minutes to be exact. i can see saying, "i pulled up around 7." but not saying "i pulled up sometime in the 60 minutes between 7 and 8." also, am or pm? is that significant?

3. how does one "relax on cool"? possibilities: sitting on an ice sculpture, laying on a bed with sheets that say "cool," doing a drug called cool which causes one to relax (which means the drug is a depressant or barbiturate)...i'm sure there are more.

4. bel-air is not a monarchy. since it's part of the U.S., it's a democratic republic, like the rest of the country, so he can't be the prince of it. at least, not without a coup of some sort.

someone is an english teacher and reads way too much into EVERYTHING. (sorry heidi and adriane, i stole your thunder.)

i'm gonna stop wasting your time now and go cook dinner, which may end up being cereal because i'm too hot to cook.

bugger.

bloggity blog blog blog

my friend gwen told me that my blogs are too long and she doesn't like to read them, and all this time i'd been feeling inferior because my blogs were so short, which is part of why i don't update very often--i feel like i have to make it 3 pages long for it to be worth anything (it's the english major in me). since i have to make it so long, i get a little bit of blog anxiety (a new disorder I just invented) and true to my "fight or flight" tendency (flight), I don't do it.

did that make any sense? if not, read it again.

i don't want to teach...i just want to lay in my bed all day...
i don't want to grade...i just want to watch my tv all day.

welcome to 4th quarter, ladies and gentlemen. couple general 4th quarter apathy with the impressively low academic abilities of my students, and it's pretty clear why I don't want to look at the crap they turn in to me.

we're reading In Cold Blood by truman capote in my modern lit class, which i was really excited about--i really thought it was something they'd enjoy and would get into, but most of them aren't reading it. it's pretty depressing. the funny part is that they're all going on sparknotes, which i've looked at, and they're really terrible for this book. which means they're all failing my quizzes. which makes the sadistic part of me really happy. vengeful? never.

today was staff development, and at the end of they day, the committee had kind of a "showcase" of student work. we saw roller coasters built by the physics classes, drawings by art students, a song and a dance from spanish, a dramatic speech from the speech and debate team, and an impromptu debate, from the same team. their debate was about whether or not teachers should be randomly drug tested, and one of the students quoted the rap lyric "smoke all night / drink all day / that to me is the american way." it was a pretty big hit. the kid who was arguing for drug testing prefaced his speech with a request that his teachers not lower his grades because of it. it was really cool.

then, we went into the cafeteria for performances from the choir and polynesian club. the other four groups that went took about 30 minutes total. the last two groups took 40. the choir sang five (count 'em!) songs, and the polynesian club did three dances. now, i'm okay with these groups performing, but it was not a choir concert--one song would have done nicely to show us what they were capable of.

however, the boys in the choir wore sparkly silver vests. i'm fairly certain a male person DID NOT pick out those costumes.


On a different note, alison and I have been eating amazingly well lately. friday, i made indian food with fake chicken and broccoli and lime-coconut rice. and then last night, alison made fake ribs and corn on the cob and i made some mashed potatoes. then tonight, i made baked potatoes... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. we're also addicted to strawberries, which I guess are in season out here. we invented something amazing on friday night: strawberry boats. take a giant strawberry, cut it in half, and then put about four inches of whipped cream on it. if you get whipped cream on your nose, you have enough whipped cream. today, we had strawberries, but with just splenda on them, because strawberry boats are something than can only be enjoyed on special occasions.

friday night was a special occasion, because we watched several episode of alias, to which i've gotten alison completely addicted. we try to watch at least two episodes a night. tonight we got three in. we were talking about how much we love alias and we decided that the night we only get through two episodes would be a truly sad night. hopefully that day will never come.

this is long, rambling, and ultimately pretty pointless. and not very funny, all of which i apologize for. i just couldn't think of anything funny.

oooohh! here's something funny: this morning, we were in a staff meeting and alison was sitting next to me, which is never a good idea. someone's address came on the projector screen and it was meteorite circle. i turned to alison and said "i totally want to live on meteorite circle!" alison's response: "It's out of this world."

we literally were laughing so hard (for no reason, because it wasn't that funny) the principal noticed and started giving us mock-dirty looks. he knew how boring it was, so he wasn't really mad, but i think he was mostly confused because NOTHING funny had happened in the last several minutes.

my principal thinks i'm a huge loser most of the time. at least he knows who i am.

almost bedtime (the happiest part of my day!)

scott baio is 46 and trying to kill me...

...which is what a dreamt last night.

this past weekend, i was in reno with my school's debate team (called the forensics team for the duration of this post) for the state tournament, because i'm the forensics lackey (bitch) who goes on the out-of-town trips as the extra chaperon.

in my dream, i was back at the tournament, but it was in beverly hills, not reno, and we were staying at a really fancy hotel. i was in my hotel room, when all of a sudden, this guy jumps out of a closet or somewhere and starts trying to kill me with a telephone cord (he was trying to strangle me with it). apparently, this had happened before, because i wasn't surprised that someone was trying to strangle me--however, i was surprised that it was scott baio. i remember thinking to myself, "That's who's been trying to kill me all this time! He must've forgotten to wear a mask this time. I guess he's trying to kill me because he asked me out and I refused him."

Anyway, I escaped, and ran down to the lobby of the fancy hotel and told the person at the desk that scott baio was trying to kill me, but by the time the police got upstairs, he had escaped. I went back to my room, where he tried to kill me again. I beat him up this time, and then carried his unconscious body down to the lobby, and i made sure to hit his head on every corner i went around. I stopped a few times to talk to students and show them his body that i had beaten up and knocked unconscious.

he must have escaped again when i got him downstairs, because later, i was on the bus with the students, he showed up again, still trying to kill me (he's persistent, i'll give him that). this time, I knew i had to jump off the bus, along with everyone else (we were evacuating). I walk to the front of the bus, and the driver has the door cracked a bit. I remember thinking to myself, "wow, this is going to be difficult. i hope i don't fall." I was extra worried about falling because i was wearing four-inch heels, which are hard to walk in, let alone jump from a moving bus.

I jumped out of the bus, which turned out to be the easiest thing ever. I landed easily on my four-inch heels, and started walking with one of my students, who, in my dream, was a journalist interviewing me about my encounters with scott baio. we walked along for a while, then we realized that we really should be walking with some of the guys, in case someone tried to attack us (someone like scott baio).

we found some other students and started walking with them until we found a restaurant to go to, right in the middle of a swanky beverly hills neighborhood. we went inside and it was kind of like a fancy denney's (if such a thing exists) and then i woke up.


why scott baio?

here's a great story about the idiot students at my school:

today, my student aide told me about one of her fellow dance team members: apparently, this girl was standing in front of the mirror and said, out loud, in front of the entire team: "so i don't get how you do one lap dance and all of a sudden you're a slut"

this is what i deal with every day.

i have a dream...

or, to be grammatically correct, i HAD one. and i'm blogging about it just for alison.

alison has this friend tony...well, she actually has two friends named tony: tall tony (or "big" tony) and tatoo tony. i think you can figure out why i call them that.

tatoo tony is a bit of a rock star. he plays bass in the band for rock star karaoke, and he's very cool; like the cool kids in high school movies. i've met him a few times at various karaoke sessions and a party--he's a really nice guy, but very intimidating (see the abovementioned coolness).

in my dream, alison and i were at a party at tony's house. in my dream, i knew that he had a party every tuesday, and he called it "industry tuesday." so alison and i are there, but the house feels like a college appartment (think brown house, manchester alum)--mismatched couches, crappy wallpaper, and a kitchen that hasn't been cleaned since before prince charles grew into his ears...er...bad analogy. but you get what i mean.

we're hanging out at the party, and i decide to get some food. i wander into the kitchen, and there is a card table with food on it. the food for the party consists of baby carrots, tortilla chips, some pieces of montery-jack cheese, and something else random that i can't really remember. these four things are all in the same bowl, but piled in different areas so they're not mixed together. like a relish tray, without the different sections. needless to say, i didn't eat anything in my dream.

i wander back out to the living room and sit down to talk with tony and alison, but then, there are trick-or-treaters at the door (suddenly) but we have no candy. so alison and i walk outside where we have a conversation with one of my old students and a girl i went to college with (alicia south) about what kind of candy to get for the trick-or-treaters. once we've decided (i don't remember our decision) we had to khols to buy candy. because that's where i fulfill all of my candy needs. khols. we get there, but the khols is more like t.j.maxx and my friend caroline from work is working there for a part time job. i remember feeling superior in my dream that she was working at khols and i was working part time at lane bryant. so much more sophisticated.

after that, we headed back to tony's house (without any candy) and when we get there, we have a conversation about how it's a school night and we have to leave by 10. then suddenly it's the next morning, and i get out of bed (my bed, in my bedroom, which has suddenly moved itself to tony's house) and walk downstairs in sweats and a fleece sweatshirt, barefoot, to get some breakfast, alison and tony are down there, and the floor is dirty (wild party), and they tell me that's it's hot outside, and i'm glad that i don't have to wear my fleece sweatshirt ever again, and i express this joy by saying "now i never have to wear this shirt again." but i don't take it off. logic has no place in my dreams.

i think i woke up sometime after that. regardless, i can't remember what happened after that, so it doesn't really matter.

i went and saw The Other Boleyn Girl tonight with alison and our friend amy. amy kept getting frustrated because she's read the book and apparently, the film is quite different (shock). i kept getting frustrated because it's historical fiction, and so there are parts that were historically inaccurate. which is why it's labeled "historical fiction" instead of "historical." issue number 1: eric bana cast as henry. now, eric bana is h-o-t-t hott. there's a scene where he takes his shirt off...alison and i were happy. but he's a fairly dark complexioned man. with dark brown hair. henry VIII was quite fair skinned, and ruddy cheeked, and had strawberry blonde hair. grrr... but eric bana...HOT!

i'm going to go fold my clean underwear (people think i'm weird for folding my underwear, but it fits better in the drawer that way. thanks mom for making me a freak) and go to bed.

funny story: i don't have any lesson plans for tomorrow!

well, oprah has proved what i always suspected...

...that i'm a genius. dr. oz was on and one person asked if left handed people were smarter than right handed people. i started listening at that point, because i've been looking for proof that i'm extra intelligent since i was very young. dr. oz's response had something to do with the amount of testosterone in the womb when the baby is still in utero (i'm a little fuzzy on the science) and basically, the right side of the brain develops more in left-handed people than usual (usual being right-handed people). according to dr. oz, lefties aren't necessarily smarter, but since our right brain is more developed, we're able to switch back and forth between the two sides of our brains more easily and more quickly. this means we're able to process more different types of information more quickly, so it seems like we're smarter. but i think that was just dr. oz's "polite" answer so he wouldn't offend all the right-handed people in the world. plus, i think he's right handed, so of course he's not going to really tell the truth, which is that the secrets and knowledge of the universe are located in the right side of the brain, and since our left hands work so much more than other peoples', the right brain gets "joggled loose" and all that comes spilling into our consciousness.

my roommate (who's right handed, by the way) thinks that's all ridiculous and that dr. oz is full of it. but that's what i would say too if i'd just found out that i wasn't as smart as me.

we just got done watching supernanny (which is like t.v. crystal meth) and the people were in las vegas, which was cool. speaking of terrible parents, the overbearing honors parent who had been emailing me several times a week about her students has finally stopped. After I'd gotten about four emails in one day i responded and mentioned that one of our goals as a school is for students to learn responsibility, and that it might be better if she had her students (yes, i get to have both of her children) come talk to me personally, instead of using her as an intermediary. and i understand that she's just trying to do right by her kids, and that they probably asked her to contact me, but it was still really annoying. anyway, her daughter came in to talk to me about her grade. i was happy. however, i do know that her daughter and two of her friends (who all have me the same period) talk shit about me during dance class, because my student aide is also in dance and she tells me. i hate two-faced-ness. (new word. double points.)

what else what else what else... i have to give two finals next week, and i haven't written either one. yay!

today, one of my american lit honors students asked if we were going to review for the final exam. i said, "yeah. open your book to the table of contents, find the titles that look familiar and review them. study your notes." i heard a little voice from the back of the classroom say, "i don't have notes." i stopped, looked at them and responded: "that's what we call learning from your mistakes." now before you start cursing me in your head for being cruel and uncaring, i want you to understand that these are juniors in high school, and honors students at that. i know that they learn how to take notes in their first two years of english classes. the fact that they usually don't pull out their notebooks unless i actually tell them to is pathetic. they should know by now that if i'm talking about a story, poem, author, or whatever else, they should be taking notes on it, because it will most likely be on a test. when we read the crucible, most of them didn't take notes at all during the entire play. then they had nothing to study, and most of them failed the test. THEY STILL DIDN'T LEARN THEIR LESSON! this is what i mean when i say my juniors are dumb this year. they just don't get it. and they want everything spoon fed to them. at least my 7th period has personality and interacts with me. my 2nd period just stares at me like dead fish. they're doorknobs, to use caroline's phrase. or feedbags, to use sean's.

it's 10:30 on a school night and i'm up (late) updating my blog.

do you see what you people do to me? :)

"you've got a baby...in a bar..."

once again, i'm blogging because heidi yelled at me for being the worst blogger ever. a moniker i sadly accept. apparently, i respond really well to people being angry at me--it's pretty motivating. this isn't shocking considering how i used to collapse into a sobbing mess whenever my mom would speak to me in any slightly angry tone when i was little. this, of course, in contrast to my brother michael who was amazingly stubborn and would continue doing something after yelling, spanking, time-out, and threats of bodily dismemberment. but i digress...

a few weeks ago, alison (my roommate) and i went to our local pub to get some dinner. previously, it had been our favorite pub because they sold our favorite drink, Magner's cider. well, they stopped selling it, because we were the only people who bought it, and two drinks every three weeks, wasn't lucrative, oddly enough. another reason we liked it was because our favorite bartender, ed, worked there. at least we thought the "work" was a past tense verb. it's also a place to get irish food, which we both love. when we got there, to our surprise, ed was working! we thought he'd quit, because we hadn't seen him in months and there he was! anyway, as we sat down at the bar to have dinner and talk to ed, i happened to look over and realized i saw a very small person at the end of the bar.

by "small person" i don't mean "little person." i mean "infant." of course i pointed it out to alison so we could mock that person's lack of responsibility and the fact that they were about as qualified to rear children as britney spears. i quoted sweet home alabama by telling alison that someone had a "baby...in a bar..."

a couple seconds later, the person holding the baby turned around and we realized it was someone we knew. a fellow teacher, to be exact. a fellow teacher who'd used to work at our school. welcome to las vegas, ladies and gentlemen.

i had never worked with her, because she moved to a different school before i came there, but i had met her when i helped to chaperone a field trip for the debate team, as she's the debate coach at another area high school. she saw us and started walking over to us, which meant alison and i had to curb all the sarcastic and critical comments that were vigorously fighting their way out of our mouths. we weren't able to look at each other very closely while we talked to her.

i also met her husband. and i thought "he looks like the kind of guy who's baby would be in a bar." he was wearing a bright yellow pull-over windbreaker. the kind you buy at the gap in a little nylon bag. the kind you wear when it rains. have i mentioned i live in the desert? yeah. classy.

after we talked to her and then mocked her (after her departure), we started talking to ed, who was incredibly cruel to me (along with alison) for he duration of our visit. at one point, he gave me a sample of some kind of beer, which i didn't care for. i told him i thought it tasted bland. he proceeded to pour me a pint of water and told me that "if i thought that beer was mild, i might like this new 'lake mead brew.'" alison laughed, because she's a sadist.


Today was my first day back at school. i was NOT excited to get up at 5am or put on dress clothes or go to school. and i'm not going to lie: my students are not smart this year. I found out a couple weeks ago that one of the junior english teachers told his students to take modern lit (the senior english class that i teach) because it was really easy. it's not. so, now i have a bunch of classes full of angry, lazy boys who are pissed that my class isn't easy. and, the thermostat in my room is broken, so it's really hot in there and by the end of the day my classroom is really hot and smells like stinky boys. ugh.

let's see... here's why i'm so bad about blogging: nothing exciting happens in my life. people think that my life is exciting and sexy because i live in las vegas, but it's not. think about your high school english teacher. you think his/her life was sexy? no, of course you don't, because teachers don't have sexy lives. well, some do, but they don't stay teachers for very long... but my life is as boring as any other english teacher. i go to work, try to get kids excited about appositives, colons, the scarlet letter, and brave new world, fail miserably, go home, watch friends reruns, eat dinner, grade some papers and go to bed. i do it again the next day. sometimes, funny things happen. the first year they were really funny, but the kids say the same things each year, and they're less funny each time. so it goes.

that being said, one of my favorite quotes from the year so far: "you know, a one night stand lasts one night, but syphilis lasts a lifetime." it was funny, but i found out from my friend jen that syphilis is curable with penicillin. however, genital warts does last a lifetime.

i've had a headache for about three days. stupid stress headaches. stupid lack of caffeine.

i think that might be all she wrote. my students don't enjoy learning how to do research. guess what i get to teach tomorrow? guess how many papers i've graded tonight? guess who might be going to bed at 8:30?

i'll try to do this more often. heidi, adriane, keep yelling at me. mom, you can try, but i think i'm immune to your yelling. i heard it too much in jr. high (don't get me wrong, i totally deserved it.)