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!)