Once again the weather folks in Toledo over-exaggerated the forecast. We were supposed to get "slammed" with an "ice storm" last night, but it was just a little bit of sleet that turned to slush on the ground. Yeah, hardly an ice storm. People here are pansies.
Yesterday I went to the mall and tried on dresses for weddings. There are at least two on tap for the year that I'm definitely attending, and both should be pretty damn fun. Speak of fun, St. Patty's day is creeping up on us, and then two weeks afterwards is Jon's Fantasy Baseball draft, which means I'll either be there as the draft board girl or I'll stumble around Berea. Either way, good times. Jon and I want to try to plan another trip to Athens before summer. Most of our friends will be out of Athens after this spring quarter, so we need to squeeze in an excuse to visit before Homecoming 2007. Yippee!
I got some news about my laptop last night. I have probably complained to you at one time or another about the shitty laptop that Best Buy sold to us about two and a half years ago. We sent it in for diagnostics about 4 months after buying it and they had it for five weeks only to tell us that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but they replaced the battery just to appease us. Well, when they returned it I had the same problems with it. I ignored them because they seemed to occur a little less frequently, until the last year. Since then I've been getting a lot of blue screens, automatic reboots and shut-downs--yes, all red flags. So we sent it back to the "Geek Squad" (stupidest marketing gimick ever), which proved again that it is useless and stupid. My dad picked up the laptop last night and they told him they found absolutely no problems and they replaced the battery. Yeah, dad was pissed. Apparently, he told them that their work was unacceptable and there is very obviously a problem with the laptop. Dad did a good job and didn't even take the laptop home--instead, they agreed to ship it right back for diagnostics AGAIN. The manager also confirmed that their lemon policy does still apply and if they have to send it back for any reason one more time after this one, they will replace the laptop. Thank God. At this point, I don't care if I get a brand new laptop or if they just make mine work. That is all that I want--a $1300 piece of equipment that actually WORKS. I will never buy a laptop or computer from Best Buy again. Their customer service sucks. And their Geek Squad sucks even more.
The song from the Six Feet Under clip below has become for me much of what Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap was about a year and a half ago. It's called Breathe Me by Sia and I recommend it if you're in for a creepy, depressing and soothing song.
I had almost forgotten how great Six Feet Under was. Chris just sent me to the last ten minutes of the series finale. If you haven't seen it and you're okay with a spoiler, go ahead and hit play. Totally phenomenal.
So Greg Daniels, BJ and Mindy are going to drive me INSANE. No new episode of The Office until March 15. I guess it's only a few weeks, but that's a couple of weeks too long. Last night's episode was totally awesome. It was great to finally see Dwight making things more uncomfortable than Michael for the first time in a while. I honestly have no idea what's going to happen with Jim and Pam, if anything. For so long I've felt that they can't let them just be together, because that would be too easy. Then again, it's been three seasons of the same thing and I honestly think it would be safe for them to go for it. I don't want them to write out Karen, though, because I'm actually beginning to like her. I don't know, I don't want to think about it because I'll lose sleep over it.
Speaking of The Office, what is the deal with the bandwagon? Not naming any names, but I feel like it was just months ago that I was trying to convince people that it's an EXCELLENT show, only for them to ignorantly say it isn't funny or the humor is too stupid. HELLO! It's brilliant. And now you're all on the bandwagon. Don't ever tell me I'm wrong about a television show again.
Government holidays mean no school. No school means more rest for me. I'm a fan.
Although I have the day off, there was no sleeping in. I caved and woke up around 7:30 just before Jon left for class. I need to be a little productive today. My plans are to pick up and ink cartridge, maybe go to the mall just to do a little walking and window shopping, and do some lesson-planning for the week ahead. Next week is "World Languages Week," which means I have to come up with some silly plans for Thursday and Friday that revolve around assiging German dessert recipes and brushing my kids up on their German trivia. I'm sort of looking forward to it because it should be a relatively easy week, but I can see myself freaking out about something already.
I started today off with a bang--coffee and My Super Sweet 16. As much as I can't stand most of those kids and their parents, I love the television they make. But does anyone else wonder why all of these kids think they need to put on some sort of performance? All of them suck at whatever they do, whether it's dancing, rapping or singing. I suppose we can blame their parents for even letting such shenanigans occur. If I am ever loaded enough to throw my kid a 16th birthday party worth more than $200, you can be damn sure that I'll be calling all of the shots. That is, IF I were even a sucker enough to waste the money on something so foolish. My kids will drive Fords or used Volks Wagons. Which reminds me, Prince William drives a VW Golf. That is a person with REAL fame and a future, unlike all of the ungrateful punks whose egos MTV feeds.
Agree? Disagree? I'm up for the debate, but I'm willing that most agree.
Athens is getting closer. I can't believe it's almost Sibs Weekend. I'm not gonna lie, I peed in my pants a little bit when I thought about it this morning.
We got a snow day today. I woke up at 6:15 to see that we, along with most other schools around here, were on a 2-hour delay due to the snow that fell over night. So I got all of my clothes ready for school then hopped back into bed. Jon was still sleeping, Charlie fell asleep again on my pillow, and I rested my head on the mattress and slept some more until a little after 8:00. I turned on the TV in the living room and NBC was rolling through the delays that had become closings. Summit...Swanton...Sylvania. YIPPIE! I didn't go back to sleep, though. So I've been up since then.
I think I might finally finish my book today that I started last Sunday. Last Saturday I read What Went Wrong?, a controversial analysis of why the Middle East is the way that it is. I thought it was interesting, so the next day I picked up another book by the same author. I've read most of it, but because I was sick I just couldn't keep the concentration to read it as quickly as the first. This one is sort of neat, though. It explains the influences of western ideas of nationalism, fascism and so forth on the Middle East. I thought I'd be able to finish it in school today, but, well, there's no school. So, yeah.
I'll probably spend a little time this afternoon working on stuff for class tomorrow and Thursday. I'm giving tests in five out of my six classes on Friday. I feel like the units that we're working on in German 1 and 2 are going well right now. I've got to a point at which I can no longer move slowly, so I've sped up the pace and the lazy kids are realizing that they need to either take the class seriously or be left behind. The results seem positive so far.
I had one student approach me after school yesterday about his grade. He is an athlete, and apparently the F that he received in my class is keeping him from participating. He more or less asked me if I could somehow change his grade. Of course I could not do anything about it. I showed him the grades he has received on homework and tests as well as all of the blank spaces, indicating that he failed to turn in probably a third of the homework I've given. He couldn't argue against it and quickly changed his strategy from negotiation to pity. Maybe if he were at least respectful and put effort towards the class, I would have been more willing to work something out. However, he's a punk who refuses to take my class seriously. Obviously his performance must be similar in other classes if the F in my class put him over the edge.
It's students like him that make me question the integrity of parents in upper-middle class communities. He isn't the only one who I failed--I can think of about 6 students off of the top of my head who I'm almost certain received F's or D's (is the right way to type that "F's or D's" or "Fs or Ds"? It's something that no style manual has ever answered for me, although I know decades are to be written sans apostrophe...anywho...). The reason I mention class is because growing up in Lorain, we always had criticism from the people in Amherst who insisted that their students were smarter and better because of their environment. As I see it, though, Sylvania is just like Amherst in that drug and alcohol problems are exponentially worse than in Lorain City Schools. One of my students was expelled for possession of heroin. Another student's brother was recently busted for snorting blow in the bathroom during study hall.
It is not only the drugs available to these kids that bothers me. It's the fact that the parents are so ignorant to it. How can a parent not know that their child is spending big bucks on serious drugs? Where do these 15, 16 and 17 year-olds get the money for these drugs? Why aren't their parents monitoring their children's spending habits more closely?
I have a female student in German 1 who called me a bitch the first week that I was teaching. I overheard that same student, mostly because she speaks 13 decibals higher than normal people, minutes before her semester exam, bragging to her classmates that her mom took her to get a manicure the day before as a reward for studying. Then she went on to boast further that she hadn't actually studied at all and was certain that she had failed the rest of her exams. Rewarding a student whose performance is so poor just for studying is like that Chris Rock joke. You know, the one that Michael Scott references on the Diversity Day episode of The Office. Anyway, I have to attend a meeting tomorrow evening with that student and her parents. Apparently, all of her teachers are supposed to analyze her performance and come up with a plan to help her improve her academics for the rest of the year. Do you think anyone else would care if I were to tell her parents that their daughter is a spoiled brat who simply needs to learn respect for herself and those who are trying so hard to help her? Because honestly, it's that simple.
Well, that turned into a lengthy rant. Can you tell that I have had a lot on my mind for the past two and a half months?
Anyway, the snow seems to have finally let up. The sun is coming out now and the roads are mostly slush. Maybe I'll venture out to the mall in a bit. I can't stay cooped up all day.
Thanks to MLK Jr., it's a three-day weekend. In honor of the government holiday, I'm not going to mention work at all after this sentence.
No posts in a while. Oops! I did attempt to post once a couple of weeks ago, but for some reason it didn't publish. I think it is blogger.com's way of trying to get me to transfer my blogger account to a Google account. I will only do it if this post does not publish. I'm just not a fan of Google--been a Yahoo! user since years before you were even on the internet and I'm trying to keep it that way.
Winter is creeping its way into northwest Ohio and it's happening as slowly and painfully as possible. I wouldn't mind if it were warm and sunny all of this time, but it's been mild and rainy for what seems like weeks. I'd rather have lots of snow than this garbage. According to the weather folks on the news, there might be some nasty ice coming through here soon. We'll see I guess.
I finally got caught up on Grey's Anatomy. I watched the first new episode since November a couple of days ago, and about 20 minutes ago I finished watching the episode that I missed at the end of November before they took a more-than-month-long hiatus. Apparently, I can watch complete episodes online and I had no idea until Sara Brown told me about it yesterday.
I've come down with a cold and it stinks. I was very tired on Wednesday after school--so tired that I took a semi-nap. It was just as bad as I remember naps being. In case you don't know, I don't nap. On the rare occasion that I do nap, I wake up feeling like crap. That's exactly what happened on Wednesday. Last night I almost napped again, but got up before the point of no return. Now I've got a sore throat and sinus conjestion. I woke up around 2:00AM feeling as if a knife was sawing at my throat, but the pain had subsided a little when I finally gave in and got out of bed a little before 8:00AM. A couple of cups of coffee and some Honey Nut Cheerios later, I'm feeling semi-decent, but still sick.
Sibs Weekend is coming up. I really can't wait to be in Athens again. There has been temptation to make a preemptive trip down there next weekend, but I used all of my will-power to decide against it. The OUCU's "end of the year" party as well as Sara Brown's 22nd birthday are both that weekend, but I had to make the call to Jason last night to let him know that I wouldn't be able to mooch dinner and drinks from the Credit Union this year. I had a blast last year and a couple of Jason's friends/former co-workers now like me more than they like him, but they'll just have to wait for another dose of me. I need all of the time I can get to prepare for Sibs Weekend, anyway. I think we might be attempting a shuffle...eek.
My bladder is about to burst. I'm gonna go drain the lizard then warm up on coffee.
Mein Leben ist was ganz besonders. Mit jeden Tag gibt es etwas neu. Ich weiss nicht wie lange mein Job als Lehrerin dauert. Natuerlich hoffe ich, dass es bis Sommer zu mindistens geht. Die Situation ist komisch und es scheint als ob niemand hat die Antwort. Blah.
Heute Abend habe ich was schoenes gehoert--Adam und Mandy sind schliesslich verlobt. Ich weiss der Datum nicht. Vielleicht im Sommer? Andere Nachricht: Jason sagte, dass er ein Diaet unternehemn wird. Pff, ja. Sehr lustig, oder?
So weit konnte niemand mich verstehen. So geht's weiter. Als ich immer gesagt habe, man muss deutsch lernen, um supertoll wie ich zu sein. Bwahaha.
Jetzt setze ich mich auf das Sofa. Ich muss mich duschen, aber ich fuehle mich faul. Und ich brauche noch Kleidung fuer morgen--der letzte Tag bevor Weihnachtspause! Prima...
I have a lot of peeves. Now that basketball season is underway and college football is turning into bowl season, there are a lot of bandwagoners and overzealous fans coming out from beneath their rocks under which they have been hiding. And with those people come those who think they may use the word "we" when referring to their favorite team. I just want to point out that none of my friends are on the Ohio State football roster, so I don't want to see any of you saying "We are the best" or "We are really good." You aren't on the team, so you may not use "we." Same goes for my fellow Cavaliers fans. WE don't win anything. WE do not play on the court with the rest of the team. WE are not on the coaching staff. Just knock it off before you give me a tick.
In other news, I think I've officially become the hot teacher. It's disturbing, but I guess almost somewhat flattering that my students like my appearance. I think "gross" describes it best. Oh well.
It's snowing foreal for the first time this winter. I kinda like it, but naturally the idiot drivers are out in full force. They either drive 10 mph below or over the speed limit. Both ends of the spectrum bother me and I wish I didn't have to share the road with them. The snow is awfully nice, though. Pretty, that is.
I'm gonna go ahead and get started on dinner now. Mashed potatoes, stew and rolls. Mmm, now that's a winter evening's meal.
