Say Yes to Michigan!

This summer has been a busy one so far.

My last day of school with students involved giving 17 kids an exam, grading them and putting in all grades in a span of 2.5 hours. I then drove about 1.5 hours to Norfolk to see my first class graduate. It was AMAZING. I didn't take any pictures because I was too busy being bombarded by about 100 kids. It was crazy with hugs, screams, some tears, laughter and smiles. One of them spun me around screaming YOU'RE HERE! YOU'RE HERE!!! Another ran across a group of people screaming my name and almost knocked me over when he slammed into me to give me a hug while he told me I made his graduation day and senior year perfect by showing up. I didn't have time to talk to a lot of them, so our conversations were brief. Most of them said they missed me, and I told them the same. A lot of them said that they still had my notes and awards (some of them were reading them in the days leading up to graduation). I heard a lot of great news about their future plans. They reminded me why I teach and made me feel like I've been pretty successful so far as a teacher. They're all such great kids, I was really lucky to have the group that I did for my first two years.

Since I left early from school, I had to go back in the day after to check out. It was basically almost three hours of cleaning up my room, packing up stuff, and then running around the big school to find everyone that needed to sign off on my check out list. Ugh.

After that, I had a day and a half to myself before David's parents came to visit for a week. We took them all around Richmond, they went to see Monticello and I went with them to Va Beach. It was a beautiful week, we were given perfect weather for each activity we chose that day. It was great to see them!

The day they left, Charna, Jordan and Dave rolled into town for the moped rally in Richmond. It was TONS of fun! It was great to be on a moped again and see Richmond from that POV. They took us on some great rides and I met some great people. My moped ran like a champ with the only problem being that it didn't want to idle sometimes (that's fixed now, though!). Everyone left Sunday morning, which was fine with me because I was exhausted, bruised, sore and blistered!

Plus, I only had one more day until I left to spend a week in Michigan. My checked luggage didn't come with me, but it ended up okay. I spent one night in Detroit so I could see Joey's bike shop and hang out with him. Megan came to pick me up and we headed to East Lansing. I finally got to see her apartment (cute!) and meet her pet rat (CUTE!), Eve. Of course, we had Tim Horton's, went shopping, had ice cream made on MSU's campus (delicious!), and relaxed. The next day, we headed to Kalamazoo, tried to find my luggage, and then had a get together so Megan could tell us all about her Uganda trip. I am AMAZED by what she got to do--truly the experience of a lifetime! The next morning, we got confirmation that my bag was flown back to Richmond and was now safe and sound in my apartment, so Megan, mom and I went shopping, got Root Beer Stand (I cannot tell you how much I miss this place!) and headed out to the cottage. We spend Friday to Monday at the cottage, it was amazing to be out there again! It was barely warm enough to swim the whole weekend, but we got some time on the lake. We also went to the Hayloft, which has amazing sundaes, and a flea market, which is fantastic for people watching. I found a few books to add to my classroom library there, too. Most of the time at the cottage was spent relaxing, playing games, and reading. It was nice having some cooler weather because I knew that when I got back to Richmond, it was going to be hot and humid for another few weeks! When we got back to Kalamazoo, I HAD to go to Kazoo Books, mostly to find books for my classroom. Thankfully, they ship books all over, so they had no problem sending the books I paid for down to VA. I also got to see Krista before I left! I'm so glad we got together! I hadn't seen her in years, and it was wonderful to catch up a little bit. I hope we get to see her when we go up for the holidays, too. :) All in all, it was an amazing trip to Michigan. I got to enjoy some of my favorite Kalamzoo or Michigan-only foods, go to Meijer (oh man, I miss that place so much), see a movie with my sister, see my parents and have an amazing time with them. I'm really lucky to have seen them so much in the past year.

Now I'm enjoying some time without plans or travel before I head off on my next trip: SF and Eugene! I'm so excited!

weekend update

This weekend, it actually felt like fall. The temps have cooled down, the trees are starting to change, and I am super excited. Autumn in Virginia is simply amazing, equal to a Michigan autumn (which is probably why I like it). Virginia has Michigan beat during springtime, though. That's due to VA having beautiful, fragrant flowering trees and bushes, and Michigan does not.
But VA kinda has Michigan beat this fall, seeing as how VA's state government isn't shutting down on Monday. David told me about it last night and I hope that everyone we know and love in MI comes through this okay. As much as it has the possibly to seriously suck, maybe it's exactly what Michigan needs? A wake up call, rock bottom, etc. etc. Where else can you go, you know? That's only a guess; my wishful thinking. Anyway, like I said, I hope everyone comes through it okay and it doesn't go to the point of many, many people losing jobs (like MI needs any more of that). What a crappy situation.

But, anyway, due to the beautiful weather and having extra time and energy, we headed downtown. We even went early enough to catch some of the famer's market! I love walking through the downtown/CW area in fall. We found some nice gummy candy, as well as some lambic, a Shakespeare stout (pretty delish) and a sparkling sake that knocked our socks off. We watched some movies, did the laundry, lazed around--all the good stuff weekends have.

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off from school. I've felt really rushed and disorganized and used our dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon to take the whole day off, rather than a half day. Our first grades our due by mid-day Tuesday, so tomorrow will give me a lot of time to plan both of the next units and get those grades it. I'm a little worried though: it's the first time my students will have a sub. Hopefully, they do a good job.

I'm sad I missed this epsiode live last night, cause I missed this.

Oh, Kanye. I love your music, your big mouth (that always gets you into trouble), and your great sense of humor about it all. Way to show them how to be a celebrity.

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.