lust list.
i’m really getting back in to (or did i just never really get out of) statement jewelry: necklaces, hairbands, rings. lately this has veered into an obsession with fabric jewelry, with a focus on necklaces. that sounds like a college major, i think: i’m majoring in badass accessories, with a minor in jewelry, emphasis in necklaces. i think this may be the accessory equivalent of my love of quotes. just one thing — simple, poignant, that says everything all at once. my bling’s got depth, yo.
i may have spent too much time in Unnamed High School this week.
let’s not think about that. look at pretty things instead. good idea.
okay, i’m done now. i mean, i’m never really done, but i have to read early american literature and have john edwards tell me that god spites me and sees me as a bug, so you see, i have Very Important Things to do.
wait for it…
i’m here, but all my writing is now directed at hall passes, grading, taking copious notes during classes, and text messages to my boyfriend, since that’s the main way we communicated all week.
oy.
it’s just the season i’m in.
monday mornaftevening ughpdate.
1. man, my brain is fried, and it’s only monday. sometimes i feel like i live a lifetime in a week. anyone else?
2. i am listening to this old gem of a song: Keren Ann – Lay Your Head Down. it’s dreamy, and wistful, and (like with most new songs) i can listen to it on repeat all afternoon. and, excuse me, is that clapping AND a harmonica in a song? well, now. swoon.
3. my sister got into a car accident yesterday. she was in the passenger side of a car that got plowed into in a parking lot, on her side. mustang vs. expedition (the car she was in), and the mustang was going fast enough that it pushed the expedition 12 feet. yikes. she’s okay, but blacked out and has sprains, pains, and all sorts of whiplashy unpleasantness. since she hit her head, of course, she had to get scans at the hospital, which makes it the THIRD time my poor mom has been called about someone hitting their head and blacking out/going to the hospital all summer. that is not the the kind of trends you want in your life, i tell you.
4. i’m not a smoker. i’m not a drinker. i do not possess a penchant towards addictive behavior.
5. i’m telling you all this because there is just specific times of life (or on vacation 😉 where one, or both, of these things just is FANTASTIC. thus, the emergency cigarettes that sporadically find themselves in my possession. and last night, driving in the car with some very, very good company, on a warm summer night after a long stressful week…
it was perfection.
hate me if you will, disapprove if you must, but the value of the schmokey treat and/or cocktail hour is not lost on me.
6. i finished the leftover bacon we had on sunday morning already. i couldn’t resist.
7. this is turning into a confession list. a select circle of friends of mine at one time faithfully chatted with each other in an undisclosed online location (doesn’t that sound spytastic?), often telling our secrets in rooms marked “confessions”. it was one of my favorite things, really.
so rare, which makes its value so high.
8. the downside to caring so much about what you are doing or where you are going (in my case, becoming a teacher), is that you are constantly reminded of how far you are from what you want to be. i have the great fortune to observe a variety of teachers, one of whom is really fantastic. i mean, REALLY REALLY REALLY. there are many teachers that i respect, but when you find one who matches so well with what you really want to be, it’s amazing.
and yet, simultaneously, discouraging because you think “how on earth will i ever get there?” and furthermore, is there any “there” there? and if you are made how you are, you will never really be someone else. foolish to try someone else’s personality on for size. so…how to navigate?
this is my daily conundrum. i live in a daily paradox, and let me tell you, it is exhausting.
9. the following things are charmingly good:
my tin lunchbox
my boy
my grey suede shoes
forging new friendships that just work
movie night with the harris’
finding old gift cards that haven’t been spent yet
my orange day planner
10. today was a MADHOUSE at school. what’s with all the kids everywhere? it’s not like it’s the first day of fall semester at the college, or anything. i have a class in the new science & engineering building (despite my class having nothing to do with engineering, or science), and i’m excited to see the inside of it.
11. as i pulled up to school, i could hear the sounds of the drum core practicing. i wonder if they’re going to do that every day, because that just makes it feel like a parade is happening in honor of my arrival, and who wouldn’t love that?
yes. and…yes. yes. i wish i had more clear things to say, but there’s only so much RAM in my head, and as bruno gianelli says, some things must be tossed overboard. today, it’s wit and clarity.
just.
verbiage.
aaaand, we’re back with another word nerd lesson, this time concerning word choice. i’ve seen this offender a multitude of times, and it just crossed my path via twitter. no free passes for twitter, just because you are limiting letters does not mean you choose the wrong word. especially when said person is an english major, blogger, and/or proposed writer. today’s lesson:
bawling vs. balling.
now.
bawling means to cry, usually with force and volume, because you are sad or watching titanic for the 16th time while pregnant eating doritos, or when something legitimately heart-wrenching occurs. the dictionary uses the word “unrestrainedly” to describe the said event, which sounds pretty heavy. balling (or “ballin'” as the Young People of Today like to say it) tends to refer to a myriad of mostly non-related things:
balling literally means to be rolling something into a ball, as in “he was balling his test in his hands”.
ballin’ refers to either the game of basketball, or that someone is living an affluent lifestyle/being ‘the man’, as in “we be ballin’!”(thank you urban dictionary and too much time watching mtv).
so you can see why someone saying “i was balling at this lifetime channel movie” is both wrong and really, really amusing. just trying to make you all look smarter, people 🙂
go forth with expanded knowledge, my friends, and hopefully nothing to bawl at.
want to know what being a student teacher is like?
yeah. like that.
currently listening: frightened rabbit.
it’s very, very good. glad i gave it another try after being nonplussed at the one song i sampled of theirs from KEXP song of the day. and thanks to the boy, for being the musical catalyst for rediscovery.
that should go on a business card.
what’s that smell?
this summer has been an epic iron-chef episode of “let’s identify the ingredients of the funky smell in the basement”. catchy title.
after careful consideration, the recipe had been identified as:
- equal parts old carpet and basement mustiness ala old books.
- sprinkle with a bit of old cat urine, cleaned up, but lingering just a bit.
- mix in gallons of rain for an essence of humidity/wet dog.
yes, we shouted. that must be it.
let’s replace the carpet, we said.
and we did, with cream colored tile that looks stunning.
let’s air out the basement with fans in the windows, we added.
helped some.
but wait…something is still lingering. i can smell it near the head of my bed, when trying to sleep.
ugh.
we installed an atomizer with thieves oil, a pumpkin-pie smelling oil that has natural antibiotic properties.
now i have thanksgiving/funk smell.
booooo.
weeks pass.
until today.
what’s the last part of the recipe for the funky basement smell, you ask?
oh yes, the last ingredient discovered today: a mouse, dead FOR MONTHS, embedded in old boxes in the crawl space; its smell permeating through the walls.
yesssss, that’s it.
ick.
monday morning ughpdate (resumed)
now that summer is officially over (despite my squeezing the last drops of leisurely summer evening dates out of the days before my workload goes nuts), routines are coming back in full force.
and so monday morning ugh-pdates return, just as long as nobody mentions how it sometimes comes in the afternoon and how i don’t always feel horrible about monday mornings.
1. the mad men season 3 premiere last night did not disappoint. since it’s not really available anywhere else except on actual cable television, which i usually don’t have and the boy does not either, i think we’re going to have to make it a sunday night date. score one point for parents with cable. i realize that the glory of mad men escapes some, but it is not lost on me.
2. this weekend was good. like, good good. the kind of good that is more like digging your hands in some rich cool soil on the first hot day of summer after a bone chilling winter, rather than a fleeting cotton candy tasting good. yes? we’re all together on the imagery? yeah, so it was good.
3. i like my boyfriend, despite feeling a little silly saying the word “boyfriend” at 28 years old. but then again, i’m also in a high school every day, so perhaps it’s fitting. i got excited to go see him after school today, and i’m telling you that i’m not generally the smooshy excitable type, so this makes me very pleased. him being in the same mood? now that’s just good.
4. jujubes. i realize they have a bad rap, and i can’t say that i haven’t perpetuated this bad reputation in a previous life. but ever since one of my favorite places in town started serving these little italian jujubes in lieu of an after-dinner mint, i’m hooked. a little gummy, a little hard, delightfully fruity and not too sweet. puntini, i’m in love. so much so that the boy and i may have ordered some to go in this little candy jar i made him get. it kind of looks like this (but yellow, and there is a set of them):
and now i have reason to say one of my favorite words more often. “what is a puntini?” a juuujuuube. rolls off the tongue.
5. my mentor teacher is this very entertaining black man whom i like to call “fitz”. we get along very well thus far, and he’s been teaching for a gajillion years, so i’m in good hands. today we put up his minimal classroom decorations. they consist mainly of a series of black and white photographs of him in full mime costume making various faces.
no, i’m not kidding.
6. i’ve been getting a lot of teacher swag lately, and in case that sounds really enticing, let me assure you that it is untrue. some of it is helpful, and i’m appreciative (don’t get me wrong) as otherwise i’d have to get it myself. what is teacher swag? well, let’s see…i’ve gotten a gradebook, a cheap backpack (like the kind with strings as the straps that look sturdy enough to hold a sandwich…maybe) pencils, candy, a single band-aid, a shirt for the school i’m teaching at, a planner, and lots of paper. today i got: a lanyard!
7. i don’t feel very grown-up yet, and i’m just fooling EVERYONE. i mean, should i really be allowed to work with kids? 😉
8. wanting long, shiny, zooey deschanel hair. i’ll have to settle for the same color for now.
9. i get the question “so…what exactly are you doing” a lot from people when it comes to my schedule these days. understandable, as even the boy gets confused when i say “school” since that means about 3 different places now. the fall semester goes a little something like this:
monday, tuesday, thursday, friday mornings and all-day wednesday: i am student teaching at the Unnamed High School. this entails me doing some observing, leading groups, teaching lessons with my mentor teacher. i do this for 8 weeks, and then switch to Unnamed (New) Middle School for the last 8 weeks of the semester. sprinkle in some seminars with my fellow student teachers who are at the same school as me each wednesday and the occasional friday. lather, rinse, repeat.
monday, tuesday, thursday afternoons: i have a different education class each day. these revolve around methods for teaching, literacy, etc.
that’s the semester. oh, and i’m also doing my last english class via correspondence course with UC Boulder, too. American English I. good times.
next semester i actually student-teach full-time at an entirely different school in a different district, because i’m special 🙂 i’ll explain why at some point in the future, but i’m the only one who does this. and no, it’s not because i’m bad 🙂 everyone else goes back to either the Unnamed MS or Unnamed HS to student-teach full-time.
this semester involves more teaching, including a minimum of 3 weeks solo teaching without your mentor teacher in the room, a teaching portfolio, and copious amounts of macaroni & cheese and cocktails to combat the heart palpitations i have while doing this.
graduation in may.
10. the boy just walked in from getting groceries saying “i have a surprise for you”. yesss!
11. it was sushi for dinner.
12. so now i’m going.
happy trails, friends. i feel like as an almost-teacher i want to take roll to see who’s present. like murray the band manager in flight of the conchords. sara, present. who else is here?
no, i’m sid.
if you recall, i’ve been looking forward to several movies all summer, and this is the last of the trio that we saw.
oh, it did not disappoint.
it actually ended up being the worst movie i could think of to go to after a particular relationship conversation, me not wanting to see a dreamy relationship set to music that, in that particular mood, seemed elusive and irritating.
it ended up being perfection.
i love the movies; i do. the boy and i share this, and i’m so glad.
epic weekend.
one of my favorite songs from the movie (albeit difficult since all of them were lovely), from the first lady of france. they’ve got something going for them, those french: Quelqu’un m’a dit – Carla Bruni
sara, darling. 