Thursday, October 26, 2006

My Day

The Lows

~I had two near-breakdowns today (one in the morning while I was rushing around getting ready for work, and one about 20 minutes ago). I'm not a crier and I almost cried twice today. I haven't been this stressed and overwhelmed since... wow, probably since my first year of teaching.

~One of my students had his own breakdown. He's on meds for something... maybe anger management or oppositional defiance disorder (I feel like I should know this, but I don't. Bad teacher.) and he has these "episodes" at least once a week. Today's tantrum was actually his second one this week, and I was just NOT in the mood to deal with him.

~The button cufflinks on my brand new shirt fell off today. Shoddy workmanship. I had to MacGyver it by using the thread that was still attached to hold the buttons together. Surprisingly it held for the rest of the day.

~I looked at my calendar and saw the obscene number of projects that are due for my class in the next few weeks. Will December never come???

The Highs

~I got a 98 on my last clinic observation (for grad school). Two down, one to go!

~I got my grade changed on a major project... went from a 95 to 100! (My supervisor made a mistake and I called her on it. I'm a bitch like that.)

~People kept complimenting me on my hair. (Thanks, Nat! It's been a week and I'm still lovin' it!)

~The Flyers won!

~Tomorrow is Friday.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

stayin' alive

It was SUCH a long day at work. I wanted to blog about it on my teacher blog, but I'm just too tired and annoyed to even deal with it. So I decided to blog here instead. About absolutely nothing.

Currently, I'm watching "Dancing With the Stars" (my total guilty pleasure show). Waiting for Mario Lopez to dance again. Mmmm... Mario Lopez... When did he get so damn good looking? It's either the dancing or the dimples or the whole Hispanic thing. Or some combination of the above elements. Whatever it is, it works.
Anyway.

I had a full day of work (which was exhausting... and I had several incidents which left me drained) followed by a grad school class. In between work and class, I was walking across campus freezing my ass off and thinking about how nice it would be to curl up on the sofa, wrapped in my chenille blanket with a glass of wine, listening to Aqualung. (If you've never listened to his CD, go download! It's some amazing music.) It was enough to make me wanna turn around and go back to my car. Alas, I could not afford to skip school.

Of course, now that class is over, I'm not drinking wine or listening to Aqualung. I am wrapped in my blanket, but I'm watching TV and killing brain cells on myspace. As per usual.

I've got nothing to say, but it's okay. And if I think of something more interesting to write about, I'll be back. But don't count on that.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

my Halloween gripe

I know, two blogs in one day. Technically the first one was last night, but since it was after midnight, it counted as today.

Anywho.

Here is my Halloween gripe. Let me preface this by saying, I'm not a Grinch. I love most holidays, just not the commercialism of the holidays. I love Easter and Christmas and Thanksgiving. I enjoy St. Pat's Day, for the most part (i.e. Irish potatoes and drinking, though I don't own much green and I hate corned beef and cabbage). New Year's Eve used to be fun, but now it's just an expensive hassle. And Valentine's Day is just plain stupid. (See me in February for a longer dissertation on this topic.)

But Halloween... that's a whole 'nother story. I used to love it: planning a costume, going trick-or-treating with friends, trading the good candy (anything Reeses) with the crappy candy (Mary Janes and anything with coconut). But lately I've noticed a disturbing trend. Halloween, for adults (or at least, adult women), is no longer about dressing in a goofy costume. It's about looking sexy. I've been checking the ads for Halloween costumes... sexy nurse, sexy witch, sexy vampire, sexy pirate, sexy maid, sexy superhero, sexy rock star... and the list goes on.

In years past, I've donned such homemade costumes as a hippie, a mime, a cat (with store-bought ears and tail), and a vampire. None of these costumes were "sexy." No fishnets, no cleavage, no heels.

Now, let me clarify. I don't feel like I need to dress sexy for Halloween. It just makes it harder to go to a party in a "silly" costume. And I have not one, but two Halloween parties to attend this year. To further complicate things, I don't have anything even remotely resembling a Halloween costume in my posession. So now what? Do I go out and spend money on a costume that I'll wear exactly twice? Or do I dig through my closet in the hopes that I can find something to pass off as a costume? Or do I just bag the whole thing and go in jeans and my Old Navy pumpkin t-shirt?

Damnit. With age comes not only wisdom, but a whole new set of problems.

the book club meeting that wasn't

Today Heather and I had lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then got our hair done (by Nat!). Fun times filled with lots of gossip, as is typical of a beauty salon.

Tonight was supposed to be a book club meeting, but three members of book club couldn't come. That left only four of us. And I didn't read the book (no time, what with work and grad school, etc). So me, Sam and MK just decided to chill at Heather's place and watch "Rocky Horror Picture Show" whilst munching on treats like veggies, spinach dip, fruit, pumpkin dip, cookies and finger sandiwches. Later, we even pulled out the Mad Libs for some grammar-infused goodness.

I drank a lot of wine at Heather's, so I should be exhausted, but I had way too much caffeine today. A diet Coke, a diet Pepsi, and a large Dunkin Donuts chocolate-hazelnut coffee. I think the caffeine and the alcohol are both trying to work at the same time. Caffeine is currently winning, as I'm wide awake and have no intentions of sleeping. However, my eyes are starting to hurt from the computer screen, so I think I'll lay in bed and watch my "Friends" DVD until I fall asleep.

This post was long and mostly pointless, but it kept me busy. That's all I care about.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

sigh

Oh, Flyers... I weep for the team I knew and loved.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

party time... excellent!

Wow. What a weekend... It was just party, party, party all weekend. Well, make that party, party. Today was Relaxation Day.

The festivities began on Friday night with dinner at Bennigan's to celebrate Rich's birthday. A yummy dinner was had by all (I got the steak & chicken fajitas) and Rich got to sing along to the Bennigan's Birthday Song. Hey, it makes him happy.

After dinner, we met up with a bunch of other people at Out of Wack Jack's (aka: Kenny's, which is the only name I knew it by until recently). Despite a "No Smoking" sign posted on the door, the place was FILLED with cigarette smoke. *cough, cough* I managed to ignore the haze of smoke long enough to drink and dance and chat with everyone. When I woke up yesterday morning, however, I felt like complete shit. My head was pounding, my throat was scratchy, I was hoarse and nauseous. Ugh. I was congested for hours. Luckily, it wore off in time for my party.

Yes, that's right - party number two! Saturday night I had a bunch of people over to celebrate my birthday. Nothing fancy, just some low-key hanging out with some booze and snacks thrown in for good measure. I had a blast. And people brought alcohol! I got 4 bottles of vodka (apple, grape, and 2 vanilla), a bottle of pineapple rum, 3 bottles of wine, a jug of wine, and a bottle of apple schnapps. Rock on.

The party went to a whole new level when the games started. There's just something about combining alcohol with board games. Hoo, boy! We started with Taboo, where Team Nuge made quite a victorious comeback. Then a few of us played Scene It, the Friends edition. Later, after some of the other guests cleared out, a group of us played Adult Mad Libs (a very kickass present from Melissa). As with any edition of Mad Libs, our objective is to think of as many raunchy words as possible. And with three teachers in the game, quite a few grammar lessons were provided as well, free of charge!

And this was followed by a rousing game of I Never. I'm not naming names (ahem), but some people drank a hell of a lot more than others. You know who you are. The last guest left somewhere around 4:30 in the AM. And I went to bed and promptly passed out. Sleep, glorious sleep. I woke up at 9:30, somehow wide awake and I've been up ever since. It'll catch up with me soon.

Anyway, it was a great weekend. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday. Thanks to everyone who came over to celebrate with me last night... you guys rock my socks!!!

Sunday, October 8, 2006

my goals

Over at Karen's blog, she posted some goals she has. She requested that others do the same, so I thought I'd oblige over here at my blog.

Some goals I have (in no particular order) (and with no time frame, cuz I don't want to limit myself):

1. Make it through my reading clinic with an A
2. Graduate and get Master's degree
3. Get certified as Reading Specialist
4. Get certified to teach in NJ
5. Find better paying job with same "family" atmosphere as current job
6. Move out / Buy a house
7. Pay off student loans and get out of debt
8. Travel more (back to Europe and perhaps to an island... and definitely to Australia)
9. Take a cross-country road trip
10. Get married
11. Have children (no less than 2, no more than 4)
12. Work as a classroom teacher for at least 3 more years
13. Work as a Reading Specialist
14. Teach a college course in elementary education (as an adjunct, most likely)
15. Get and maintain decent haircut (sounds petty, but I never like my hair)
16. Write a book about a year in the life of a first grade teacher
17. Learn how to speak Spanish fairly fluently
18. Possibly go back to school to get certified as an ESL teacher
19. Possibly go back to school for my doctorate

And I think that's it. I wanted to make it an even 20, but I can't think of any more.
They're not entirely unrealistic goals, so I should be able to work it out. And if I don't hit them all? No biggie. As long as I'm happy, it's all good.

Now go write your own life goals, damnit!