In the Mail

Well I'm officially in it now. I finally went to the post office today and mailed off my MFA application packets with my writing samples, SOPs, essays, and the other millions of documents each school required. It was an exhausting process, and I'm glad I took care of it relatively early... Although the wait will be worse, much, much worse.

I cannot remember the last time I saw the sun--October has been incredibly bleak in St. Louis. Supposedly this is the rainiest October in the history of Octobers for Missouri. It's turning us all into Eeyores--especially the students. Today in class a girl who is usually very attentive just completely face planted on her desk--she had fallen asleep sitting up. My window faces the fields and all we can see in any direction is gray skies, gray grass, gray air. Usually during October our little community is full of vibrant colors as the leaves change, making this my favorite season. Not this year--this year we're all sleepy and unmotivated, cranky and on edge. All of us--teachers and students--are ready to pull a Weasley and get the hell out of here. And it's all because of the weather!

We need some sun.

I did get a laugh this week when I received my official GRE score reports in the mail with my percentile rankings on them--35th percentile in math. Hahahahahahaha... I thought I did well! Oh, well. It's no secret that the mysteries of numbers will forever be closed to me. All that matters is my verbal score, which was much, much better, so I can laugh at my paltry math 'skills'.... I did try, though, so I guess I'm a little embarrassed. A little. Oh well. At least my verbal score makes me smart.

I really want to go to the AWP Conference in April (http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2010awpconf.php). What are the chances that my school will give me three days off to play with other writers in Denver?

I can't explain to you how ready I am to take off and get out of here, I really can't. Being away from home makes you love home more--and I'm ready to love home more. If I don't get into any MFA programs, I'll cry for a few months, and then we're just going to leave anyway, off to anywhere shiny and bright and new.

Started reading TKAM with the 9th graders this week--every time I read that book I am more and more convinced that it is not appropriate to teach it to freshmen in my school. The language is too difficult for many of them (don't believe me? Go read it again. Read the first twenty pages) and the subject matter is better discussed with students who have matured more. It was almost easier to teach this book when I was in Georgia because my classes were more diverse. The students could really understand what was happening in the book, they could feel it, and they had so much to say about it. The students I have now? Not so much. It's really interesting to me how different the classes I had in Georgia are compared to the classes I have here. Not just the color of their skin, but their maturity and life experience.

The seniors at my current school are less mature than the freshmen at my old school. I don't know if that is related to diversity or the size of the school population or just the culture of the school. I don't know. But in Georgia, we could have an in-depth, serious discussion and respectful debate on the use of the N-word and other racially charged language. Here, I would never dream of attempting it. So maybe it's my fault, maybe it's my own assumptions, maybe I'm just too burned out to know.

It's really hard to discuss racial and cultural issues in a place where the only time students encounter people of other races and cultures are in the two books we teach that have diverse characters. Two books. That's it. Of all the books we read, how many of the authors aren't white? One--and it's a book that I brought with me from Georgia and shoved into the curriculum. It makes me sick. So am I surprised that my students tend to have limited points of view? Are you?

In high school, how many books by diverse authors did you read? The only one I can remember from my own high school experience is "Things Fall Apart."

All right, enough ranting. I'm alone in the apartment and there's an undefended box of chocolates on the counter. I have business to attend to.

Emily

Checkmarks

The purpose of this weekend was two-fold: Take the GRE, and finalize the list of schools to which I'd like to apply. I think I've nailed them both.

My goal for the GRE was to get at least a 600 on verbal and to scrape a non-humiliating math score, and I accomplished that. My verbal score is a 700, and the math is 540. I can live with these scores.

Today I spent over four hours sitting in my parents' freezing basement, trying to whittle down my list of schools that I'm interested in. My parents' furnace is broken, so I'm huddled under an afghan that has creepy country cows all over it, trying to type while the cat is crawling, inch by inch, onto my keyboard because it's the only warm thing in this place. I've set up a space heater three feet from my face, and the smell from the damn thing is making me nauseous.

These are the woes I suffer for my art, I'm telling you.

I come over to my parents' place every Sunday to do laundry--oh, how I miss the days when I owned my very own washer and dryer. It was such an accomplishment for me to walk--heart racing, hands sweating-- into Lowe's and make such a major purchase without any sort of masculine assistance. Not that I would have refused the help, but for a woman alone, which I was at the time, the ability to do such things becomes important. Survival skills, for the just in case.

Back to my point--I've realized something that perhaps I should have known all along: If someone asks you why you want to go to a particular school, and you don't have an answer, scratch it off your list. Today I spent a good deal of time not just reading the promotional materials on web sites, but also scoping out the blogs of students who attend these schools. I learned a lot from doing that, and it really helped me to evaluate the kind of community that exists at each of these schools, and it also helped me to realize the kind of community I want to be a part of. I also took a hard look at their faculty and graduates (Alice Sebold went to Irvine! Porter Shreve teaches at Purdue!) and really asked myself if and how that would affect or enhance my writing. These are not easy questions, but I did my best.

I decided on a 5-tier evaluation system--I have to have systems and plans, or else I go crazy. These schools are going to rake my application over the coals, so I might as well do the same to them.

So this is how my evaluation process went, in order of importance:

1. How well-funded is the program?

I've already attended four colleges--SMS, Truman, Kennesaw, and Mizzou. I love school, I really do. I can't get enough of it...but I also can't afford another cent of tuition, I really can't. Those journalism education courses at Mizzou really killed my bank account. If the school doesn't offer fantastic funding, I just can't go. It's reality. Reality sucks.

2. Who teaches there? What have they published? What awards have they won? How long have they been teaching, and which authors were enrolled in the program while they were teaching?

This was the toughest part for me to judge, and it took the longest. I was very excited to discover that Porter Shreve teaches at Purdue--My grandmother gave me "The Obituary Writer" when I was in high school--or I might have stolen it from her bookshelf --and in a twist of fate I later became an obituary writer. What does that mean? I don't know. But I really liked the book, I really like Purdue, and this makes me happy.

3. Does the school also emphasize literature?

Hopefully yes. I like to read. Writers must read.

3. What do the students say about it?

Most student blogs paint a fairly positive picture, but it's easy to read between the lines. On one blog, a fiction student describes in detail how the workshops and classes are run, and while I love workshops, that school's process was not appealing to me. On another blog, a student raves about how tight-knit the faculty and staff are, and this most definitely IS appealing to me. Student blogs add more detail to the sketches of the schools I'm drawing in my head, and I'm very glad to have found so many (mfachronicles.blogspot.com, for one).

4. What authors graduated from there?

This is not necessarily indicative of the quality of the program, but if quite a few successful writers all went to the same place, they must be doing something right.

5. Location.

I have to be able to live there for up to three years.

And so I now have an official list, and while I'd like to apply to them all, financially speaking it may not be possible. So here they are, and keep in mind THESE ARE NOT IN ORDER OF PREFERENCE:

1. University of Las Vegas
2. University of Oregon
3. University of California Irvine
4. Purdue
5. University of Texas, Austin
6. University of Florida
7. University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne
8. Ohio State
9. Arizona State

Like I said, I may have to whittle this down further based on finances, but here they are. My dream schools. Three of the schools on this list are top-tier programs, and I'm wondering about the wisdom of applying to all three of them. I suppose I'll spend the next few weeks wondering some more.

Now that I have a workable list and now that the GRE is out of the way, I can finally really dig in to putting the applications together. My writing samples are nearing completion, so now it's just time to slog through paperwork.

See you on the other side.

Emily

Testing

I'll be taking the GRE in a couple hours. I took it once before--it was my exit exam for Truman. When I took it the first time, I did pretty well, and somehow managed to score higher in math (630) than in the verbal section (620). It's been five years since last I took this test, and it is incredibly possible than I am now much dumber than I was before. When I first took it, I had just finished my undergrad and was still in the college cocoon. Now, I spend my days among high school students.

Like I said, I'm probably dumber.

I don't care too much if I completely bomb the math section, I'd just rather not get an embarrassing score.... like a 2. My only real goal is to score above 600 on the verbal section. To this end, I've memorized 148 vocabulary words common on the GRE. Like abstruse. And vituperative. And intransigence. Hopefully my students accidentally learned something, because instead of, you know, talking to them yesterday while they were typing up their papers, I paced around the computer lab with my flash cards, speaking these words and their definitions to myself. I'm sure this only augmented my reputation for being freaking weird.

If none of those words I memorized is on this test, I'm going to be really pissed off.

The good news is, tonight I'm going to see Phantom at the Fox. So even if I completely and utterly fail the GRE, I have something wonderful this evening to balance out the horror of it all.

I'll admit that for about 5.6 seconds, I seriously considered taking my Snuggie with me to the testing center. Don't worry, I came back to my senses.

All right, wish me luck--at least when this part is over, I can concentrate on the part that matters.... like actually completing my applications!

Opprobrium is the state of disgrace that comes with doing something considered to be wrong. I thought you should know.

Emily

Application season begins...

I'm in the midst of applying to MFA in Creative Writing programs, and I can't even begin to describe this process to you. Applying to undergrad seemed so stressful at the time, and now I scoff at it. Scoff I say! There really wasn't any doubt in my mind that about getting into Missouri State or Truman... but I have every doubt about every school on my list for my MFA apps. People don't believe me when I say that it's really, really possible that I won't get in anywhere, but it's true. There are schools that only take 4 people a year. FOUR.

Here are schools that I'm looking at:

University of Las Vegas
University of Oregon
University of California Irvine
University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
University of Florida
University of Texas-Austin
Ohio State
Arizona State
University of Virginia
Purdue
UMASS-Amherst
University of Missouri-St. Louis

That list may change at any moment, really. It's all so overwhelming... I have a very intense color coded Excel spreadsheet. I'm not an intense color coded Excel spreadsheet kind of person. It makes me feel very intense. It makes me feel like I'm about to fall over into a puddle of my own drool and drown in it.

Is there no possible way to standardize or streamline this process? Every school has different page length requirements, recommendation requirements, GRE requirements, writing sample requirements, essay requirements, transcript requirements, and trying to figure out what to send to the school and what to send to the department is just an absolutely impossible task. Don't even try. If you try, you will wake up hung over wearing nothing but cowboy boots and some bangles and not know how it happened.

This is going to be a very expensive, frustrating, and lengthy process. Thank you for putting up with me.

I have 5 stories I'm working on as contenders for my writing samples, and that's about all I've managed to accomplish. I'm going to take the GRE on Saturday, and today instead of teaching my journalism students, you know, anything I spent the entire block making flash cards of really insane vocabulary words, like 'abstruse' and 'heterodox'.

This is how I measure my success: I have not brought home school work once this year. Somehow, I have learned to leave work at work, and it is glorious...especially since all of my free time is now devoted to watching trash TV on Bravo, working on my applications, blogging about my applications, crying about my applications...and mostly saying I'm working but not actually working on my applications. It's very exhausting.

I really think everything would be better if I could have a cat.

Emily

the past is a bucket of ashes

I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
a sun dropped in the west.

I tell you there is nothing in the world
only an ocean of tomorrows,
a sky of tomorrows.

I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
at sundown:
Tomorrow is a day.

~Carl Sandburg, from Prairie

Winging it

"Aw, honey, want some chocolate?" greeted me as I walked in the door of the Wings of Hope hangar, 30 minutes late and apparently looking frantic enough to prompt an unsolicited offer of Hershey Kisses from the very kind receptionist.

I was very late, but the president of the charity apparently decided to keep waiting a room of a dozen men who wanted to give him many thousands of dollars so that he could keep his meeting with me. After we talked about my next design projects, we just spent time chatting about my job and life and golf tournaments and traffic. Despite the fact that everyone at this charity has 1000 very important things that needed to be done three weeks ago, they take the time to ask if you're okay, get you a bottle of water, and hand you some chocolate. They'll keep a room of wealthy donors waiting to take care of their own first. They'll say screw it if something doesn't work instead of plowing ahead just because it was the original plan. They'll actually save someone's life every day.

As I walked out of my meeting, I heard a "psst!" as I neared the front doors. The receptionist was nudging the chocolate bowl my way.

I love those people. I really do.

However, I have fallen out of love with my GPS, which gave me the Worst Directions in the World for getting to WoH from my work. I've never gone there from work before, only from home, and while I should be able to get myself there without the assistance of a technological mapping device, the truth of the matter is I cannot. And so it took me nearly an hour to get there and I was feeling very violent toward every other car on the road. I'm also pretty sure that a red light camera got me, but that's okay, I deserve it. I ran through that light with intent.

I am researching MFA programs. Suggestions?

Dear reader, a plan.

In my short but illustrious teaching career, I have had exactly three Bad Days. Not tiring, frustrating, exhausting, I need a drink kinds of bad days, but truly Bad Days that call for the more serious remedies of chocolate ice cream and a hot shower. (Note to new teachers: Never buy a gallon of ice cream. You won't eat the whole thing now, but you'll eat the rest of it when you encounter the inevitable Bad Day). Regular old bad days happen once a week, but the big Bad Days, well, those are different, a mon avis.

My first Bad Day was in my first year of teaching, when I was alone in the hallway with a violent student and I really believed he was about to attack me, because he really was. But he didn't. This was when I learned the art of Calming a Situation Down with a Soothing Voice and Extended Arms. Instead of attacking me, we sat on a bench and he cried while telling me about his horrific home life.

My second Bad Day was also in my first year of teaching, when for the first time I felt control ebbing away and the kids began to take over. To REALLY take over. I started crying and ran from the room. You have no idea what it is to lose control until a 15 year old takes it from you and you're left shaking and alone, sobbing in a bathroom stall.

My third Bad Day was today, in my fourth year of teaching, and nothing happened. Well, it did, but it wasn't beyond my abilities to deal with or understand. It was more of a "Straw, meet my camel's back" kind of situation. (Side note: are people in Georgia the only ones who use 'the straw that broke the camel's back'?) Today, I have unfortunately had to discover my resolution through a thoroughly discouraging series of circumstances. I could allow this grand series to antagonize me for the rest of the school year, or I could make other plans.

There are a few things I know. I am impatient, easily frustrated, emotional, self-righteous, impulsive, self-aware, judgmental, and sometimes I think alcoholics have the right idea.

Am I wrong, or is that not the perfect recipe for a writer?

My point exactly. The only way I want to be in a classroom is if my name is on the cover of a book that the students have to read. Such sweet revenge that would be.

So I'm formulating a Plan. I won't tell you my Plan, dear reader, but once I've figured it perfectly (I do love to plan), I'll let you know. However, you can guess the outlines; most of my grand plans follow the same general pattern, haven't you noticed?

I sorely miss my Lizzie, Renee, Laurie Strauss, Jess, Linda, Eyatta, Leslie, Maria, Ken, Anna, Macon, Stacey, and Laurien. Where did you go? Where did I go? Can't we all just go to Los Reyes and get some cheese dip and margaritas? I mean, really. Wouldn't that make life so much better?

Emily

Shred

Hello.

I've been MIA for quite a bit, I know. I'm sorry. My life all of a sudden seems so full, and I like it... so I missed you, but I didn't. Know what I mean?

To tell you the truth... I've been cheating on you. I've started another blog. I didn't make it a big public thing because most of you won't care:) I've started a new workout program called the 30-Day Shred, and it is simply ass-kicking. I'm charting my progress through those thirty days here: http://thelastten.wordpress.com I got the idea for it from Brett, whose awesome blog in inspiring, and because while doing research on the Shred I discovered all of these crazy 'Shredhead' people who blog about how much they love the pain... and decided to join them.

So, sorry, but at the moment I'm a bit more devoted to that blog than to this :) And I think I like Wordpress much more than Blogger. Sorry, Blogger, but it's true.

Anyway--Summer approaches, as does complete and total happiness. I will go many places and do a whole lot of nothing for weeks on end.

For the record, I will never strip search a student. Just in case you were wondering--no.

Today I told my 4th block students no less than five times that their in-class essays were due at the end of class. And yet they protested with shock and surprise when I demanded that they turn them in, claiming that they thought they'd be able to take them home. This is why you shouldn't listen to your iPods in class, fools.

I'm intrigued by the charity Wings of Hope. Maybe because I just saw a commercial with Harrison Ford, and Harrison Ford looks like my dad.

So those were all the things that I found it necessary for you to know. You're welcome.

Laurie Strauss: Come home.

Emily

Sing it Mary J.

Well it’s just been crazy around here lately. Too much drama for April… No more drama! April should be drama free! I just invented that rule, and I feel it’s a good one.

On the flip side, I’m going to Chicago next weekend with the bridesmaid crew for Wendy’s bachelorette extravaganza…I might be going to something called a redheaded piano bar. I’m not really sure what that is.

AND this summer Alex and I are going to Vegas. I solemnly swear not to get married to anyone with a peg leg named Rico. But I might.

AND I’ll go to the beach in July.

AND after the next 7 weeks I’ll be off work for 9 weeks. You know what? I sincerely hope that makes you hate me just a little bit. I can take it—I hate you a little bit for not having to deal with teenagers every day, for not having to panic when their cars hit phone poles and flip three times on the highway, for not having to cry when their 1-pound babies are born, for not having to feel like an utter failure when they drop out.

So yes, I hope you hate me just a little bit. It feels good every now and then when someone actually wants to be me, as it never, ever happens.

So anyway I’m really quite ready for this stressful week to come to a close. Tomorrow I’m hoping everything will start to calm down—I’m giving a test in all of my classes, and that usually eliminates the amount of time I have to, you know, talk to people. I like that.

All right I have to go meet the lovely Ms. Wendy B for Pilates. It’s time to “exhale the toxins” and breathe “like a goddess.” I’m not posting as often and this is a short one, and yes I know you’re disappointed. Sorry… I just actually have things to do now☺

e

maybe I'll just wander slowly away...

First of all, be warned that there be no deep thoughts abundant here today.

I've said this at least ten times this week: Spring break has done nothing if not convinced me that it is imperative that I find a way to never have to have a job ever. I'm not going to dwell on this much here, for the day is beautiful and my freedom is slowly seeping away, but I will say this: This week has just been wonderful. There's really no other word for it. I've gone to Creve Coeur Lake every day and thus murdered my calves, visited penguins, walked with dinosaurs, punched a snowman, conned my dad into a free lunch, read a Roddy Doyle book, eaten half a chocolate cupcake, been stalked by a shirtless homeless wordsmith, put my dominant soccer skills on display, spoiled myself and befriended my neighborhood Vietnamese nail technicians, looked at my work bag once or twice, and last night I gave a little loving attention to a neglected bottle of Grey Goose. Unfortunately that bottle was once owned by a douche, but I feel that I have successfully claimed it and thus de-douched it. Yes, I just said that.

And all of this I did on my own time table and on my own terms. Is it possible to retire at the age of 25?

Today I already ran once around the lake...and then biked a lap... and just so you know, one lap around that damn lake is four miles, so it's not like I'm going for lovely little strolls. Of course today the FHN cross country team decided to practice at MY lake, so that was annoying. I'm on break! No teenagers! I was wearing a t-shirt that said the name of my school on it and of course one of the idiot teenaged boys dared to ask me if I go to that school. I gave him a withering look and informed him that no, I don't go to that school, I TEACH AT THAT SCHOOL. He looked properly mortified.

All right that's all for now. I'm going to go find more adventure.

e

pink and pigeon

Ladies and Gentlemen: I am on spring break. I can do anything I want to. I don't have to talk to any teenagers. I don't have to grade a single paper. I don't have to listen to a single excuse or drive through any cornfields. I am going to go to the zoo. I am going to walk around Creve Coeur Lake. I am going to sleep so beautifully I could cry. I am going to watch episodes of The West Wing for the thousandth time and love it. I am going to drink wine on a school night. I am going to write pages and pages and pages. And God as my witness, I’m going to read a book.

Last night Alex and I went to see “Glengarry Glen Ross” performed by Hot City Theatre at the Kranzberg Arts Center on Grand, near the Fox. I had never before seen the show or the movie, so I had no idea what to expect. It was in a black box theater, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. We were absolutely the youngest people there, but that doesn’t matter. I was very impressed by the quality of the acting as well as the ingenuity it must have taken to come up with such a variety of ways to say “Fuck you”. One slur was so incredibly shocking that the old lady sitting in front of me gasped very loudly and covered her face with her hands. It was fantastic ☺ So if you need something to do this weekend or next, I highly recommend it: http://www.hotcitytheatre.org/

My mind got set backwards this morning, and when that happens it just goes and goes and goes and doesn't stop. One memory is linked to the one before it and the one before that and the one before that, and before you know it I’m meditating on my experiences in the third grade, and sometimes when I get caught up in nostalgia I think about really silly things—like how pissed off my 8-year-old self would be at the 25-year-old-version. I imagine the accusatory questions:

Why don’t you have a horse?
Where’s your convertible?
You mean you don’t you have your own mansion?
What do you mean you’re not a princess?
Why aren’t you wearing a pink dress and high heels?
Why isn’t there any licorice in your kitchen?
Shouldn’t your hair be longer and blonder?
Where’s the tea set?
Diet Coke? Really? You can get soda anytime you want and you are drinking DIET COKE?
Why does your passport only have a few stamps in it?
Do you really have to wake up at 5 a.m. five days a week?
You weren’t a cheerleader? You weren’t homecoming queen?
Why don't you have three dogs, two cats, and a pigeon named George?

In no way am I disappointed with how my life has gone, it is what it is, but sometimes I think about what I imagined life was all about when I was a child, and I conclude the following: children are stupid.

I don’t really make a secret of the fact that in elementary school my best friends were teachers—no one likes the smart girl with glasses—and so I spent a lot of time assuring myself that all those recesses spent indoors making bulletin boards and all those times I had to bribe people to pick me for their kickball teams was okay because I would be married to a prince and living in a castle with a horse and a big TV by the time I was 16. Thanks to Disney, I had a warped perception of age and time when I was younger.

I have a stack of letters that I wrote to myself as a child—they’re all labeled with ridiculous things like, “open when you’re finally happy,” “open the day you get married,” “open when you have a baby,” “open when you’re famous.” They’re all in a Winnie-the-Pooh box in my closet. There are a few that, according to the self-imposed requirements, I could open now. However, I won’t. I don’t know if it will ever be a good idea to do so. As I said, children are stupid. What could I have said? Oh I can’t wait until I get a life-size Barbie Dream Car?

So my inner eight year old can just be quiet. I don’t have a convertible or a horse, but I got to drive the Party Wagon, the Cloudy Blue Assmobile, and the Cutty. No mansion, but I’ve lived in four different states and two countries. I don’t wear pink every day, I’m not so blonde anymore and licorice is no longer a staple in my diet, but I’m free to choose to have those things anytime I want. The tea set is safe in mom’s basement, and the Diet Coke isn’t such a bad adulthood compromise. That passport has plenty of time to fill up, and there is plenty of time to take a nap in the afternoon. No, I wasn’t homecoming queen; I was a Shakespearean heroine, a matchmaker, a sardine-loving housekeeper, a clueless German aristocrat, a child in a wardrobe, a Greek goddess and Narrator #2 instead. And I’m sorry, there’s just nothing I can do about the pigeon. It’s never going to happen.

And I don’t need to be a princess; I’m a freaking belly dancer.

So beat that with a stick, nostalgia.

I’m going to ride in my chariot to the marketplace now, where I will bargain with the merchant o’ Schnuck for the wares I require.

e

let's watch the news together

I haven't written in nearly two weeks...I'm not really sure what to say here anymore. Maybe my eloquence has dried up due to the shock I received when Jack opened that door last week! I am so mad! There had better be some fantastic Jack Plan that I just don't know about yet because that was NOT OKAY.

All right now I'm feeling as though I'm back into the swing of things. Today I had my official evaluation with my principal, and I'm pretty sure the point of the meeting was to suck up to me as much as possible in order to prevent the possibility of my leaving for another school. Or maybe I really just am the Best Teacher Ever. Who knows?

I just watched about 20 minutes of a National Geographic documentary on life in a men's prison. I never want to be a man, and I certainly never want to be a man in a men's prison. I thought you should know.

However, I have always secretly wanted to be a GED teacher in a women's prison. I rarely tell people that, because they look at me like I am absolutely insane. Well maybe I am--but I still want to do it, anyway. As Aaron Sorkin via Sam Seaborn once said, "education is the silver bullet." So there.

Well, I really want a cat. Everywhere I look there are cats that are not mine, and I just really want a big fuzzy cat who will shed all over my stuff. Technically I have a cat, but she's 16, elderly, cranky, noisy and a permanent resident of my parents' home. I thought you should know that, too.

I need songs that use figurative language in them.

If I was about 20 years older I'd go after Brian Williams. Speaking of NBC newsmen, did anyone else hear Mike Bush's slightly inappropriate comments about Barbie? At the end of the 5:00 news tonight, he referred back to an earlier story during which it was stated that Barbie looks like she's 15, and made it perfectly clear that he certainly doesn't think she looks 15. Deanne Lane looked at him like he was crazy and said something like "I don't want to get in trouble and I don't want to get you in trouble so I'm not saying anything." I thought that was rather hilarious.

I've started reading "A Farewell to Arms," and I hate to say it, but I think I like it...whatever it means to like a book, that is.

Do you ever get overwhelmed by the feeling that your life is incredibly transitory, temporal, unfixed? I think that's the plague of life as a twentysometing. Or just the plague of my life. Whichever. I often feel that everything I have could disappear at any given moment, without warning, without reason. I feel that way in my classroom sometimes, too--that at any second I could lose control and disappear completely, Radiohead style. I think it's due to the incessant feeling I have that I'm supposed to be doing something that I'm not...and I have no idea what that means.

Well, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls and whispered in the sounds of silence. So that must mean something. I'm in a Simon & Garfunkel mood today. That tends to happen when I'm extremely tired--it was a pretty good day, but I am just exhausted. I went to bed at 9 last night, woke up late, it's 6:00 and I'm ready to go back to bed. Maybe it's the rain.

You know I'm only watching the local news for Ryan Dean, and he has not yet made an appearance. What a waste. I mean, Cordell Whitlock has an egg-shaped head. I'm here for Ryan Dean and Anthony Slaughter. Where they at? Did Mike Bush just say Zombie Debt?

Good Lord I had the most awful dream about zombies the other night, and it is entirely Alex's fault because he reads those Zombie books.

If I hear or see anything else about the damn digital transition I'm going to transition my digital tv right out the window. This is worse than the 'countdown to shutdown' for Highway 40. If you don't know by now, you don't deserve to know EVER! Good Lord Cindy Preszler just told us that we need to figure out what county we live in and what it looks like on a map so that we won't die in a tornado. Once again, if you don't know by now, you don't deserve to know EVER! Education is the silver bullet, but it will pass you by if you're just a freaking idiot!

"All eyes in jest still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." Exactly, Simon & Garfunkel. Exactly.

What does a 'slight risk' of thunderstorms mean? That doesn't mean anything. There's a slight risk of my neighbor one day DDR-ing so much that he falls through the ceiling and into my living room, but that doesn't mean I need to be warned about it.

All right I have go to take a little nap before ballet or I'm going to melt like a snowman.

You have yourself a fantastic night.

e

live feed

I know, I know, two posts in one day. But I wanted to share my thoughts while watching the Oscars:

~Yes, Hugh Jackman, yes! Sing it! Dance it! Take your shirt off!...er…I mean, what?
~No, Anne Hathaway, NO! GO AWAY! WE HATE YOU! AND YOUR VOICE IS HORRID!
~Anjelica Huston is a most unfortunate looking woman. And why on Earth does she spell her name with a J? Lame.
~Oh Whoopi Goldberg and your nun jokes.
~Why is Tilda Swinton wearing a bag?
~Sarah Jessica Parker’s face really does look like a foot. I’ve said it all along. Look at her smiling behind Marisa Tomei…what a foot face.
~That home wrecker won an Oscar! What! Well she’s wearing a puff dress and she has to live with that.
~”Writers do not merely write screenplays; they write movies.” That was God awful.
~Steve Martin! Oh Steve! I forgive you for the Pink Panther movies!
~Wow Tina Fey looks like a girl. I like this pairing of Steve & Tina.
~Effing Hello Dolly. There was no need for that business.
~Sean Penn is so happy! Look! A happy Sean Penn!
~I like this Milk screenwriter. It’s 87% possible that he’s actually humble. I bet he’s on The View by the end of the week.
~Oh look at Tina trying to quote Charlotte Bronte. How cute.
~I didn’t know that Benjamin Button was originally a Fitzgerald story! Wait…how did a short story become a 3-hour film?
~Alex better not find out Slumdog Millionaire won anything. Actually, he won’t care.
~In fact, I really don’t care…I haven’t seen any of these movies…but I’m sucked in…
~Why haven’t I seen Wall-E?
~I’m done commenting for now.
~No I’m not. Look how pissed Jennifer Aniston is to be ten feet away from her ex-husband and the home wrecker. There are a lot of home wreckers in that room.
~WHAT! ANOTHER HELLO DOLLY MENTION! THAT IS BULLSHIT!
~This poor man…he doesn’t speak English. I think he just said that he thanked his pencil. Hahahaha…he just thanked Mr. Roboto. That’s my favorite guy of the night.
~Daniel Craig Daniel Craig Daniel Craig Daniel Craig on no and FOOT FACE!
~The Duchess was a really good movie. Kiera Knightly should have been nominated instead of that horrible Anne Hathaway. Poor Kiera. Stupid Anne.
~Okay now I really am done commenting. I need to work on something else while I watch the show ☺

waiting on the kettle

Well I thought I was finally going to get down to work, but, well, no. I set all my books out, but then I had to go to Barnes & Noble, and when I came home I had to make tea, and then I had to make toast, and then I had to talk to Rachel on the phone, and then I was like hey I should blog, and so that's what I'm doing instead of my grading and planning. Oh, well...what can you do?

I've recently discovered that I'm quite the Microsoft Paint artist. At my school, there's a new student teacher and she is the most annoying person on the face of the planet. One of those people who not only talks exclusively about herself, but talks exclusively about her self constantly. Lunch has become a 30 minute torture session because of that woman's unending, agonizing, self-aggrandizing speeches. She doesn't do anything but TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK. I know this is arrogant, but shouldn't student teachers feel...shy? Or humble? Or, I don't know, the need to be silent? My point is I have stopped going to lunch on days when I know she'll be in there, and instead I sit at my computer and make Microsoft Paint artwork. This could be my new calling. In the last week, I have had many new callings: French teacher, Pilates instructor, romance novelist, lottery winner, event planner, and now professional Microsoft Paint artist. I dream big. Oooh, I just looked at my tea mug and now I want to be a tea mug sculptor. I'll just get some clay and a kiln and fire up some awesome looking mugs. And then I'll paint them...I'll paint them good.

Tomorrow I will be attending a conference at the Holocaust Museum for teachers who use the book Night in the classroom. Not only am I actually interested in the topic of the conference, which is a rarity, but I get to sleep in an extra 90 minutes and I don't have to see any of my students!!!! I shouldn't be so excited about that, but I am. I need spring break like Leland needs a clue (Yes, I watch Dog the Bounty Hunter. No, I don't care what you infer about me from that fact). The conference is what spurred me to go to the B&N... I left every single one of my copies of Night at work, and there is no way I'm driving out to the corn fields on a Sunday, so I just bought another copy. While I was there, I'm 88% sure a man in sky blue linen pants was following me around, so I did what any intelligent woman does when men stalk them in bookstores: Sit in the middle of the romance section and pull out every single book on the bottom shelf in turn to read the summaries on the back. No self-respecting man, even one who wears blue linen pants, is going down that aisle. Thus I defeated the Blue Linen Stalker.

Okay time to focus. Until next time--

e

time travel fire hazards

An educational publishing company contacted me to request that I review a book they're publishing on co-teaching. They asked me because of my article in English Journal, so basically what I'm trying to say is I am 100% better than you.

I'm completely determined to publish a book of my own this year. I don't care how long it is, what it's about, how little money it makes, or how embarassed I am for people I know to read it. It's just simply going to happen--whether it's my travel memoir, my crazy book about Eden and time travel, or my first-year teaching guide I wrote with Lizzie in grad school, something will be published this year or I'm going to set something on fire.

This week at school, a water main broke and we had no water all day. Did they send us home? No. Did they just lock the bathrooms and assume everything would be fine? Yes. Did that work out for anyone at all? No.

So that happened.

Tomorrow was supposed to be a day off, but due to snow days we're in school. Oh, well. I highly expect that not many students will be there and despite my best (or sort of best) efforts, nothing substantial will be accomplished.

I am now in possession of two snowman pillows; now I shall never be without one, as is my preference.

Anyone who drives a Yukon is an SOB. That also applies to drivers of Odysseys.

I have nothing of import to say, but that sure doesn't seem to stop me from saying it anyway.

OH we went bowling the other night and not only did we see the mayor of Munckinland (an enormous man in a bright orange t-shirt with suspenders) and William Shakespeare (brown hair curled under to shoulders but bald on top) himself, but also a characer from Zoobilee Zoo (RAT TEETH)!!!! I know that sounds mean, but these people resembled all of those characters, they really did. It's all Alex's fault, anyway; he pointed out the similarities. How could I help but to notice?

I can't seem to find my sister. I'm going to go take care of that now.

e