lightning fast trip

Winter break was a quick one.
Our flight D.C. to Detroit went quickly and well. David did pretty okay on his first fight ever. We landed in Detroit, ate some lunch and hung around David's parents' house.
The next day, we went to meet up with Amanda and exchanged gifts. It was nice to see her again, if only for a short amount of time! We also tried to see David's grandparents, but couldn't get ahold of 'em. We drove back to Warren and went to Bo's family Christmas. We came back so late we decided to do Christmas at 2 AM and sleep in the next day.
Christmas started off with a huge, delicious breakfast. Two of David's uncles came over. We watched movies, Superman, and lazed about. We ate dinner with them and then headed to Kzoo. We got to Kzoo about 9:30. We waited for Meg to get home and then decided, since it was late, we would open presents, get it over with and sleep in the next morning. We did. Megan liked her two seasons of Gilmore Girls, my mom's "tea for two" set (two cute mugs and four loose leaf teas) went perfectly with the tea kettle my dad got her (we had no idea we were getting gifts that would go so well together!) and my dad liked his coffee. I love giving gifts. David and I got some awesome stuff. I got some socks from sock-dreams.com (wooooonderful socks!) and enough money on a gift card to get a CD player installed in my car (yesss!). David got a very nice outfit that is very appropriate for internship/grad student life.
I soon realized I was the only one without a laptop. Meg has a beautiful iBook, David has his huge laptop, my dad has a tablet laptop (where you can flip around the screen and write on it), and my mom has a laptop, too, now! David and I made a joke about how we should all be on our laptops and also talking on Instant Messenger. So, we showed my parents how to use AIM! Now they are totally caught up in the technology world.
We headed to Rocket Star for some quality coffee shop time. I dropped off two copies of my zine in the zine library. Meg, David and I showed each other the newest funny videos on youtube we've been laughing at. It was nice.
The next day was our first full day and started off pretty rocky. Brody has been acting up recently and decided it would be a good idea to latch on to Megan's hand with his teeth and not let go. Luckily, Megan's hand is okay, just swollen and has a few wounds on it. No broken bones or anything like that. Whew. Brody will also be going into training after he is out of quarantine. I hope it works and that Brody and my family can live in harmony and finally relieve some stress that dog has been putting on my family.
Mike came to stay with the family for a while. It was nice to see him, as always. It was especially nice to see him since he brought along a Wii! What a blast that stuff is! I was sore from boxing Megan and Mike and I swear I pulled a butt muscle bowling.
We also went to get tattoos. David got the golden spiral, I got my other hip Hedwig tattoo done and Mike got his Harry Potter tattoo touched up. It was awesome to see DJ at the shop. He seems like he's doing fantastically well.
Anyway. David and I went out separate ways, hung out with all our friends, went to coffeeshops, bars, wherever. We caught up with Kalamazoo and tried to see everyone we could. Here's where I will name drop--it was wonderful to see (mostly in order of how I saw you): Clay, Mike, April, Ian, Johnboy, Quaz, Natalie (!!), Scotty, Traci, DJ, Kim, Dan, Bill, Emily, Brian, Katy, Spock... hopefully I did not forget anyone. Congrats to Dan & Emily, who are now engaged.
It was strange being back in Kalamazoo. I was looking forward to being there and seeing friends, but I also felt myself slipping back into bad habits. I used the move to Virginia to start on everything I wanted to do and be. Being back in Kalamazoo, I realized I was being the old Alison. Not that I'm that much different, but it's different enough to bother me. It was really awesome to see my sister, family, former co-workers, friends, etc. But I don't really belong there anymore. Most the people that live there I don't keep in contact with and they don't contact me. No big deal. Kalamazoo moves on without me. Yes, it would be nice for someone to say they missed having me there, but they have no reason to. I wish I could bring some people here with us so this town would be more interesting, but I have no interest in moving back to Kalamazoo. First off, no jobs. Secondly, Michigan is depressing. I'm enjoying Virginia much more. Thirdly, most of the people I still keep in contact have moved other places. David and I were talking about how, in a few years, most of the friends we had in that city will be in other places. That's good, though. Kalamazoo seems to have a way of stagnating people. Anyway, it was good we were only there for a few days. Now it's time to get back to business.
The flight back to VA SUCKED. First, we were supposed to take off at 9. We boarded the plane at 8:30. We sit and sit and sit some more. Finally, the captain comes on and says something like, "Well, folks, if you've looked out the windows, you've seen the fog. The fog's even worse in D.C. and they're not letting anyone fly in." So we sit. Sit more. Finally, at about 10/10:15, they let us leave the plane to stretch. We re-boarded at 10:40 and sat for about 30 more minutes. Finally, we took off. We were supposed to land in D.C. at 10:10. We landed around 1:30. There was about a 30 minute wait to land in D.C. from the back-up of flights. It was so long of a wait that the pilot said if we had to wait 20 more minutes, we'd have to fly to Atlantic City to fuel up. The bright spot of this flight was the head flight attendant who decided to change up the original flight safety spiel. It started off with the usual stuff and then she pops in (not even breaking character) "please pretend to pay attention". She also had other gems popped in there like: "...then we would not have come to work this morning.", "If you are sitting next to a child or a politician, please secure your mask before securing theirs", "For those of you that have never been in a car before, this is a seatbelt. Please secure it tight and low around your waist like Britney Spears' jeans", "the in-flight movie is Gone With the Wind", "The lights in the cabin will be turned off. If you look above you, you will see a white button that will turn on your own personal reading light. Do not press the blue button, as this is your seat ejection button". The best part is that most people didn't even notice because she kept the same tone of voice (and it was very stereotypical flight attendant style) and the other flight attendants didn't even flinch! Everyone acted as if it was totally normal. The people that did notice were laughing their asses off, though. It was priceless.

I've put all the pcitures I took on my flickr site, along with a TON of wedding pictures (by Beth) that David's parents scanned in for us and put on a CD.

Also, Chris and Cherie were broken into before Christmas and hit pretty hard. While we were in Kzoo, we talked to a few people about collecting some money to replace stuff/repair their window. We're going to buy them a few movies they had stolen. If you're interested or if we already talked to you and you can spare a few bucks, let me know.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and that you have a good New Year's Eve/Day. Ours will probably consist of Yuengling black & tan and continuing watching the Twilight Zone marathon on Sci Fi.

hang in there

I had a wonderful plan for my day today that involved getting the required "what I did on my Holiday Break" blog out of the way. Unfortunately, I will explain and update tomorrow. This update will be the most epic blogging you have ever seen in 2006.
Or maybe just on December 31, 2006.
And possibly maybe probably not that epic.
But it has a 70% chance of at least being a little entertaining.

with a quickness

This week we made cookies. One batch of ginger snaps that were far too ginger and one batch of oatmeal/banana/chocolate chip cookies that were deeeeeeeeelicious!
I got a lot of cards from students and teachers. I got candy and cookies from a few students and one of my co-teachers. My other co-teacher gave me these three beautiful candle holders that say, "peace", "joy", and "noel", plus candles. Now I must find something or make something (food-wise) for my two co-teachers to thank them.
One student gave me a cute snowman candle. One of my students made me two "snowmen". They were made of three marshmellows on a stick, dipped in chocolate and white chocolate, meant to be stirred into hot cocoa. She also gave me a card that said I was a great teacher and, even though she may not say it a lot, she appreciates everything I do. It was amazing! I gave her some hot cocoa mix. Other teachers were jealous of the stuff/cards I got... I was totally not expecting anything!
This week, I made copies and put together my first (kinda crappy) zine. It's rushed and kinda disorganized, but it'll work and the next one will be better. I wasn't sure what I wanted out of this one, but now I know for the next one.
Today, so far, has involved packing (pretty much finished), cleaning, and getting the apartment ready for the pipe replacement that's going on while we're gone. We have to move everything off the counters and from around the kitchen sink in the bathroom, remove everything from one of our storage closets, and remove everything from the bathrooms. Ugh! This also means the cats will be stuck in our computer room the WHOLE TIME we are there because they can't be loose while the dudes are working. Carly is going to check on them mid-way to make sure they're doing okay though, so that's good. (It still sucks that they'll be in one room for a week. ugh.)

And we're off!

list it out

What have I done recently?
-Decorated a Christmas tree that is very tiny.
-Remembered how chilly 20 degrees could be.
-Remembered how much I liked 50-60 degrees.
-Laughed at people from the South who complained about 35 degree mornings. It's not that cold. C'mon!
-Started to get my zine together.
-Got excited about giving two people the perfect things. Oh yes.
-Got excited about going back to Michigan in a little while.
-Put on my Canada Olympic team vest. Missed grandpa.
-Found myself hating Virginia a slight bit, but only because I'm frustrated by other things.
-Sang and danced and looked forward to being able to listen to something other than the radio in my car soon.
-Stressed about money. Bah humbug.
-Looked into programs for my master's. Got excited about what I found. I think I found exactly what I'm looking for.
-Wondered if teaching was really what I should be doing. I suck, man.
-Felt frustrated with teaching, the "system", "The Man", students, etc.
-Was disappointed by students being one day behind where they were supposed to be. The whole students not taking responsibility for what they were supposed to do and, instead, deciding to whine has really gotten old. (Then I remember that there are "adults" who do the same thing in college and beyond. Is that more or less depressing? I can't figure it out.)
-Decided to take a day off to avoid mental breakdown and maybe even choking a child or two. I am looking forward to tomorrow. Mental health days, man. That's where it's at.

don't you let them tell you that you're wrong

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists on Saturday was amazing! We got there pretty early, hung around, waited for them to open the doors. When they let us in, it seriously looked like some prom-type stuff! They had snacks and drinks. It was caaa-razy. My camera was dying, otherwise I would've taken a picture. The place was a good-sized ballroom, but it was only about half-full. Only a handful of people actually knew who Ted Leo and the Pharmacists were, some of those had only recently found out who they were (through Death Cab's recent tour).
The first band was from WBG and sucked. Really bad. It was... oh my. Painful.
The second band was from Sweden, Sirqus Alfon. They were hilarious. They did all covers of popular songs. Some examples: "Crazy in Love", "Can't Touch This" (Yes, MC Hammer. It was awesome), the Mario Bros. theme.... and many more I can't remember. They have a website, you should check it out and get an idea of the craziness we saw: http://www.sirqusalfon.com/

Ted Leo had a sinus infection. It did not show at all. If this show was him at his weakest, holy moly-- he must be amazing when he's healthy. Everyone now and then, after he finished singing, he would play his guitar and cough his lungs out! The dude was so sick! It was awesome to see him live and, especially since he just opened for Death Cab about a month or so ago in Norfolk. The tickets for that show were something like $30 or $40! We heard that he only played stuff from Shake the Sheets. This show, he played stuff from that album as well as Hearts of Oak. They played forever! Plus, he took audience suggestions and played songs that he claimed they rarely play.
What they played (not in order, I can't really remember the order):
Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?
I'm a Ghost (one of those "rarely played" ones)
The High Party
the Ballad of the Sin Eater
Bridges, Squares
Me & Mia
The Angels' Share
Counting Down the Hours
Little Dawn
Heart Problems
Bleeding Powers
Walking to Do
and one from Tyranny of Distance that I can't remember the name of, but was also one they rarely play.
Basically, it was an amazing show!


This week, I had a rough start. My throat started hurting Friday afternoon. Stayed kinda ache-y through the weekend, and Monday/Tuesday, it hurt to talk a lot. Yesterday, it became really dry and it was difficult to keep my class on track. Today, though, I feel much better and had a day where I didn't have to go to school. It was my 2nd BEST training day and it was pretty useful. It's nice to have those day-long breaks every 2 months to get a little advice and be able to hang out with the other first year teachers from my building. We are the worst students there, I swear! haha.

whoa there, weather

This whole past week I've forgotten it was the end of November and first of December. It was upper 60s to low 70s all week, with a few rain showers and some crazy heavy fog in the mornings. Yesterday was so beautiful, we were missing a good chunk of students--haha.

After much complaining about how Williamsburg never has shows (and the closest ones are a good chunk of time away), and that no one ever comes to Virginia, anyway (unless you count D.C.)... Ted Leo is playing a FREE SHOW TONIGHT. So, we go. Yesssssss!