GAH!!

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EQUALS

MY BIG FAT CREEPY ALL- NIGHT DREAM LAST NIGHT.

Oh yeah, I was on a scavenger hunt all night long.  And I had to keep achieving levels.  And I kept trying to wake up from this dream but every time I did and went back to sleep, I would just be on another level, like in Mario Brothers, but not nearly as fun.  One of the levels, when I was looking in a bedroom for a clue with Lyndi (picured above, sorry about that), she disappeared and when I found her by a closet she was saran wrapped on an exercise bike and couldn't move.  And the ghost was watching until I got her unwrapped and then I had to get the next clue.  It was f-bomb creepy, I SWEAR they put something in my coffee at the Mill.  

The worst part?  The stupid scavenger hunt because they kind of just tick me off.  Maybe it's all those sorority proposal stories I had to sit through in college that always had the girl go on a scavenger hunt and wait for it....at the end was the guy in a limo!  With roses!  With the most perfect ring EVER! (Insert 80 girls oohing and ahhing.  Ok, that sounded super cynical but it's fine.)  So I kept trying to quit the scavenger hunt (like Chandler tries to "quit the gym" in Friends) but IT WOULDN'T LET ME!  I finally woke up out of sheer frustration and thought, "Well, parent-teacher conferences will be super fun on no sleep."

I think I'm on something and don't know it.  And I should be packing for my less-than-24 hour trip to Chicago but instead I Googled all of those pictures and blogged instead.  Helpful.  And so help me, if Casper and his stupid posse interrupt my sleep with their saran-wrap-my-friends shenanigans again, I'm going to be soooooo mad.

from a lovely friend

Back Home by JJ. Heller

Don’t let your eyes get used to darkness, the light is coming soon.
Don’t let your heart get used to sadness, put your hope in what is true.
No matter the how the wind may blow, it cannot shake the sun.
Lay your sorrows on the ground.  It’s time to come back home.

V day highlights

*The Spanish Club still sells those heart balloons with Spanish love phrases on them (I'm not in charge of Spanish Club fyi...)  The big seller?  "Ganaria tu affeccion."  Why?  Because if you're a 16 year old boy, that sounds like the STD, gonorrhea.  And then that is SUPER funny to you.

*I got harassed about not having a boyfriend not only in person but also via Twitter by students.  Glad this has expanded to different media types.

*We made Valentines in Spanish.  The sophomore boys that don't talk to girls made their Valentines for their Xbox.  I'm not kidding about that.

*In Spanish 4, they had a sheet with some really cheesy pick-up lines in Spanish.  They could also write their own.  The best Valentine I saw was a crappy heart with the line, "Es el mejor que puedo hacer."  (This is the best that I can do.) He said he when he was 21, that was the line he was going to use in a bar.  I told him, "Good luck with that.  Use the next 3 years to keep brainstorming."  He claims his natural self will win them over.  (And now I'm reminded why I will NEVER go downtown ever again once these kids start turning 21.  I don't want to be a witness to this.  Kill me.)

I Heart Mumford and Sons

Awake My Soul
How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes
I struggle to find any truth in your lies
And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know
This weakness I feel I must finally show

Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all
But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall
Lend me your eyes I can change what you see
But your soul you must keep, totally free
Har har, har har, har har, har har

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life
In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life

Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker
Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker
You were made to meet your maker


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD41MbiJKcU
He has a 'stache but wow, he's dreamy.

Sesame Street

Last night I stayed at Tabitha (and Brian's) because I left my coat with my car keys in Laine's apartment up above.  Cool, Jill.  And I didn't realize it until it was way too late.  So I got out my overnight kit that is stored in "my" nightstand in "my" bedroom and Brian got me "my" extra phone charger.  This morning I decided to take advantage of being downtown so I left time to get coffee.  (Plus it's a Friday and that's just a necessity.  Along with getting under 6 hours of sleep per night all week.)

So I walked to my favorite Starbucks and saw people meeting for coffee and going about their lives and it just made me wish SO much that I was headed to the stoop to talk with Maria on Sesame Street.  I always feel that way when I walk in certain parts of downtown Lincoln because it's a small "big city" feel, just the way I envision the Sesame Street set.  Plus, the National Research Corporation building with its bright colors always makes me feel like I'm on Sesame Street.

Doesn't this just make you want to be there?  Ughhh, I wish my only cares today were what the letter of the day was.  ( A couple of days ago when it was literally zero degrees out, I'm almost positive the letter of the day was F.  Eff it's effing cold out, etc. were the short clips for the letter.)

What a great lady.  I wish Maria would come and talk in Spanish with me.  Right now, instead of being at school.

See?  Don't all the colors make you think of Sesame Street?  Except this is the grown-up version, being that it's all bars but whatev.

And my favorite Lincoln Sesame Street building on the right... the good ol' NHC building.  I was so wishing I could walk to Hooper's and then stop by Oscar the Grouch's trash can (after getting Starbucks, of course.)  But instead I had to make sure I didn't hit the homeless man with my car and tried not to shout at the person who pulled in front of me.  (I wonder if I should star in a Sesame Street episode about the dangers of road rage?)

pretties

I think I'm going to wrap all of my presents like this for Christmas next year.

 I want lip balm like this.  Mainly just to look at it.

 And my newfound obsession with birds.

South of France circa 2004

I want to go back! And live on bread and wine and chocolate and still look like that. Summer goal...here I come! But seriously, we're hoping to go a beach somewhere while I'm in Spain this summer and why not the south of France?

question

Do I have ADD or am I just a huge nerd?

Origin of this question:  Tabitha just told me about another weirdly printed shirt that she thought I would like.  (Because I have an affinity for weird prints...airplanes, birds, and owls now co-exist in my closet.)  So then I told her I wanted a dress with a pterodactyl print.  She then told me only I would think of that/know how to spell pterodactyl.  Which is probably true.

But THEN I wondered why silent letters exist.  And do they call them silent letters?  Or is there another grammatical term?  So of course I google it because I already memorized the French IPA pronunciation guide this afternoon.  And there are a few kinds of silent letters and in this case it's called a "dummy letter".  Duh.

And then I thought, remember when I took phonetics in Spanish?  And I practiced different sounds with my the placement of my tongue?  And my teacher always had pit stains?  And then I saw him (Errapel Mejias-Bicandi) in a bar in Bilbao one night while I was studying in Spain.  And he always had crazy professor hair.  And there was also a random stray dog in the bar like there was everywhere else. Yeah, that was weird.

So I'm not sure what it is.  I'm thinking it's more of the nerd origin because I do at least somewhat stay with a thought for more than 5 seconds...at least long enough to learn a fact about it.  (And Ash, I know you're mocking me right now and saying, "I love facts!")  Because I said that once in all seriousness in a somewhat nasal voice...and now we're off topic again.  You can be the judge.

it's a Monday

Today I had a very long conversation with my student teacher about classroom management.  We are VERY different in personality (I once described her as the antithesis of me but whatever) so this was a funny conversation.  I realized that so much of how I manage my students is via my natural sass and it's not something you can necessarily teach.  So she asked me for ideas and I gave them to her and she looked at me like "I don't think I can say that."  And then I laughed and said, "Ok, well you keep trying new things until you figure something out."  (Apparently it's not a normal thing to say to a kid, "I love you but you are seriously annoying me right now.  You get 5 more seconds to make that annoying noise and then you're done."  Who knows, it works for me.)

Anyway, point of this is that I realized how much of teaching just has to be you, being you, doing what you do.  Sounds overly simple but the reason I think your first couple of years are so hard is because you don't necessarily know what "being you" looks like.  We also talked about how you just need to make each student feel like you care about them as a person.  And then I had to nicely tell her that I don't think she's doing enough of that right now.  Call it manipulation or call it love, but you win over the heart of the naughtiest kid in your room and your life WILL be better for the next 9 months.  Oh hey kid with anger issues who's on pills for that:  Did you know we're going to be BFF's?  Oh you didn't realize that in August?  Well now 6 months later, he is telling me about how his girlfriend and him split up and needs advice and hasn't had one outburst all year.  I'm telling you (student teacher), it works.

So how do you teach someone how to love your students well?  I'm not sure.  I'm trying but it's not something you can necessarily teach a person.  So we're working on that this week.  I can't decide if she really digs what I'm telling her or just thinks I'm on crack.  Oh well.

lolz lolz lolz

It's been awhile. I needed another post about the Oregon Trail because it is just that awesome.

I wish these were on every street corner.

Super Bowl Champs!

And now I can eat my super sweet Green Bay cookie pop in celebration!  Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!  (Thanks, Patters.)

green and yellow green and yellow

GO PACK GO!

Clay Matthews:  You are a beast.  And I would marry you.  And I like your long hair, tangled mess and all because you are just a dreamy football player with mad skills.

I'm kind of stressed today but sooooo pumped!  I can't believe I got to see this team play this year!

Also, Patti made me a Green Bay Packers cookie pop and I'm going to eat it and watch the game at the Clark's and it is going to be marvy and fabby.  And I might even take pictures.  Fasten your seat belts...big day.

Bridget's Law

That title credit goes to Patti and how true it is.  It's like Murphy's Law, except more along the lines of the stuff that happens to me would happen to Bridget Jones.  Example from last night:  I went to my first hockey game EVER and got hit by a hockey puck.

Actually, Tabitha and I both got hit and the best part was we kept telling our friend Nickie that we were both afraid it was going to happen.  (Tabitha also has a propensity for things like this but hers more falls under the "klutzy" category, falling up and down stairs, dropping things on her shirt, etc.)  Then like the super cool people we are, we debated the geometry of it all.  A conversation ensured about obtuse and acute angles.  At the end of it, Nickie still wasn't convinced but conceded by saying it could happen, but statistically it was highly unlikely.

Enter in Bridget's Law (and Tabitha's klutz factor.)  I went to my first ever hockey game and then towards the end of the 3rd period we decide to just go for the closer seats because we didn't want to crawl over people.  And what happens?  The puck comes flying (slowly) at us.  Slow enough that I knew what was happening and said an expletive, covered my head and then 10 minutes later, the puck landed on my hand/Tabitha's arm.  OF COURSE IT HIT BOTH OF US---a hockey puck has so much surface area...such a large object.  Cool.  And then of course everyone was looking at us.  And the gross 30-something guy in front of us (with his 2 kids) made an inappropriate comment about the puck and the landing down Tabitha's boobs, and what he was watching, etc.

So the moral of the story is:  If you want to see something embarrassing or awkward or just uncomfortable happen, hang out with me, Bridget.  Because it WILL happen.  And that is le fact.

p.s. I'm totally fine, my hand was just sore for the rest of the evening and there was black stuff left on my pinky finger from the puck.

p.p.s. It's telling me to spell pinky as in "pinkie" and that is NOT correct, Google Blogspot.  I checked on Wikipedia to be sure.  Get your facts straight, please and thank you.

oooooooookkkk

My Facebook almost just read as this:  It's a good thing I don't buy Q-tips more often.  I would use them way too much.

Weird, Jill.  And yeah, I guess I told all 12 of you who read this but you all know I'm weird anyway.  And have a dirty mind that then thought that status could be taken a hundred different ways.  In other news, here's to hoping my cold medicine counteracts my 3 cups of coffee tonight?

new project

So we're doing a spring musical.  Am I crazy?  Probably.  Am I bored with a student teacher and not doing a million things at once?  YEP.  Actually, this is going to replace the show choir show and we are having auditions next week.  We then rehearse it during their "class"/study hall (where I incidentally don't have students) and put it on April 28, 30 and May 1.  

I started listening to the music obsessively today.  And now I'm a little freaked out.   I always do that.  I start to think about everything that goes into it and wonder if we can pull it off.  This will be the first serious musical I've done.  The rest have been family-oriented and just fun.  This ENTIRE musical is singing.  There isn't even a script of dialogue.  Yikes!  I've done plenty of dramas before so it should be fine but still.  Pretty excited though.  Hopefully it goes over well.  And if it doesn't, well, I won't die.

Now if I could just decide on the fall musical....maybe I should stop thinking of other projects.  I keep thinking I KNOW and then I change my mind.  It's always hard to follow a really big show, such as the merry old land of Oz.  At least there won't be ANY green sparkle in this show.  In fact, no sparkle at all.  GOOD.

Snow day numero uno

What I did in pics today:

Literally used these all day.  And now I can't hear out of my left ear but whatev.

 Temperature Tuesday Runzas with the fam.  (Thanks, Dad, for picking me up for lunch!)

 Lindsey "forced" me to play Dream Phone with her.  (I loved it. Except Dale ended up being her secret admirer and I got zilch.  Typico.)

 Braved the roads and went to Lyndi's for the evening.  Proceeded to have 3 cups of coffee.  And that's why I'm blogging at this time of night.

On tomorrow's snow day agenda?  Well, Lindsey and I will be heading to Lyndi's to play Mall Madness.  I can't wait.  You bet I'm 26 and still like those games.  If I still had my Barbies, I'd probably bust those out too.