well, well, well...

I missed my train to Philly. For some reason, I thought I was leaving at 6, even though the last train out of WBG is always, always, always 4:45. I realized this at 4:45. We got there at 4:55 and guess what was actually on time? The train. Wow.
This is the first time I've ever done this. But, really, I guess it's for the better? We rushed out of here so fast, I forgot my water and my coat for colder weather. I hate being rushed when I travel, too. The guy at the station was incredibly nice, rebooked me for tomorrow morning--no questions asked. Plus, it's a better view during the day time? The only problem is that the $30-50 I was hoping to save by going on Saturday night instead of Easter Sunday went into paying for the $107 (!!! WHAT?!) ticket to Philly. Drat.
But! Spring break goes on and, after kicking myself for a good 30-45 minutes, I asked David if he wanted to go to a movie. We went to see Doomsday. If you're in the mood for a ridiculously gory, bloody, and hilarious action movie-- do it. You'll also see a trailer for one incredibly freaky looking movie, called The Strangers. Supposedly, it's based on a "true story", but you can't find anything about it on the internet.

Also, this week's episode of This American Life, "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar", is simply amazing. I was lucky enough to finally catch the airing of TAL since I left my teacher work day at 1 PM. WHRV apparently hates people listening to TAL and airs it every Friday from 1-2 P.M., so I always miss it. I was absolutely fascinated by this story, it was amazing. If you missed it, get the podcast and listen to it! Another good one to get the podcast for is "Shouting Across the Divide", which is about Muslims and non-Muslisms communicating. The first part of it almost made me cry.

Also #2, my birthday is coming up (JK! It's in a few months, but let's just say it's soon). Would you like to buy me an iPodcase for my cold, scratched up iPod? Or how about a new wallet? Or a reusable lunch bag? I really need to stop looking at cute things on the internet.

do some jimmy flips!

It's David's birthday today! We went out to eat last night and hung out with a few friends. I got him lots of stuff (In Rainbows by Radiohead, slippers, a laptop desk, 2 Adbusters issues, new earbuds that hook on the back of your ear and books by Obama, Soros and C. West) and I think he likes it all. I listened closely and well.

Today we went to see Atonement since I finished reading the book yesterday. It was a pretty good adaptation of a book that involved a lot of description and characters thinking more than doing. I can see why it's nominated during this award season, it was a beautiful movie and pretty well acted.

The weather recently and the fact that we're nearing the end of February means that spring is almost here! I feel like making some mix CDs, especially since the Talk of the Nation on Valentine's was all about making mixes, so if you would like a spring-themed mix CD-- let me know!

halloween week & pure exhaustion

Glad this week is over. Halloween = sugar madness & lots of wrappers on my floor. Plus, the kids are in a phase of testing the limits and figuring out that the freshmen downstairs hog the security that we don't have enough of.
I had my first "That's it! I'm quitting!" moment of the year this week. It always happens around this time: You start to get tired & irritated & stressed, etc. You question if you're actually meant to do this. You look around your room, at your students, and see a room full of kids that just. don't. care. Nothing excites them, teachers annoy them, everything goes in one ear and out the other, they make a big deal out of you asking them to do what you see as a simple task... the list goes on. You ask the question: What would posess a sane grown person to put themselves in the position to be told off, ignored and criticized by teenagers? It all seems worthless, useless and a waste of your time.
And then the moment passed. It comes, I let it in, hold on through it and try to not let it affect my teaching that much. I figure that's better than denying it or trying to ignore it. I'm pretty sure it happens to every teacher at some point in time during every year. It was probably caused by a little laziness in my planning, being behind in grading and feeling incredibly exhausted.

But it was Halloween! We didn't really do much, since no treat-or-treaters come to our apartment, extreme exhaustion (seriously, I never woke up! I was the walking dead) and the height of my debating whether or not to continue on being a teacher (ohhh, woeee is meeee!), we watched movies!
Here are some good ones we watched:
Fido: Set in the 1950s, about the world after the "Zombie Wars". Involves zombies, but I would say most people would enjoy this even if they don't like zombie movies. It's supposed to be a "boy and his dog" movie, but with zombies instead of dogs. I thought it was very clever and I got a few good laughs out of it.
Wait Until Dark: Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who's terrorized by three guys trying to find a doll with drugs stashed in it. It's a slower moving movie, but pretty awesome.
Hellraiser: It's supposed to be scary, but it's hiiiiilarious. Soo much that was supposed to be scary was just absolutely ridiculous and made me giggle a whole lot.
30 Days of Night: This we went to see in the theater on Sunday. I wasn't expecting much, it looked pretty cheesy from the previews. It ended up being pretty interesting and worth the time and money. You could definitely see the influence of the graphic novel, which was great.
If you are looking for a good horror/psychological thriller/suspense movie, try A Tale of Two Sisters. It's amazing and actually had me on the edge of my seat.

ace lip puff that hung.

whatsupwhitehouse.JPG
Originally uploaded by alipants.

Well. Hello.
The past week has been busy, as well as lazy since the busy part = complete exhaustion.
Megan showed up in D.C. last Thursday. Something about her flying into D.C. means delays! At least this time we were at the airport right by downtown, so we headed over there.
We hit up the White House, the WWII memorial, reflecting pool, Lincoln memorial and Vietnam memorial. We also sweat a lot, due to the incredibly warm temperatures. And we all wore bad shoes. I took quite a few pictures, they're on my flickr site.
Having Meg here is nice. She already has a job at the movie theatre across the way. FREE MOVIES! YESSS! We went to see 28 Weeks Later, which was pretty awwwwwesome! On Saturday, we re-arranged the place to give her more room in the computer room. It ended up making our living room a lot more comfy and lived in feeling.

School has been nuts. Not only is in May, mid-May, 3-weeks-from-the-end May, it's also been the start of the SOLs. Ohh, the SOLs. Such fun. I've had a lot of students missing from classes because they're taking tests and I've had to give up two of my plan periods to help observe the taking of the SOL. Hurray. Next week is the last full week of them, thank goodness. The only good thing is that we've been playing Mad Gab in class, due to lack of students. A few of my kids are hooked on it, it's kinda funny. Beyond that, I had fun scrambling around, trying to get everything organized to help the students in their literature circles. I chose 5 books for them to choose from: Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Lesson Before Dying, The Secret Life of Bees and Snow Falling on Cedars. So far, they seem to be enjoying the books. A good chunk of them turned in their "research" papers (yes, "research". Most of them haven't been putting in citations, making it not an actual research paper, but, instead, an essay with a lot of plagarism). Ugh. Those are fun to grade. I have a huge stack a-waitin' for me this weekend. But this week I found out that I'm teaching two 11th grade classes and three 10th grade next year- hurray for a little variety!

Anyway. Beyond that, I've been so exhausted. My bike finally got fixed and is ready to ride, but it's been kinda gloomy and rainy (that's supposed to change this weekend, though). Oh! And I finally finished #2 of The Alison Transmission. Let me know if you want me to send you one.

two suggestions

In the past two days, I've seen two great movies that you should check out as well:
Invisible Children: about the child abductions, brainwashing and rebel army (the LRA) in Uganda. If you enjoy it, make sure to spread the word. There is a group of students at GHS (my school) who are raising money to support a school for the children who haven't been abducted yet and those that escaped and survived. They're part of a cluster site with schools from the area and schools in other states that are supporting this school. If you're interested in donating money, you can either check out their website: Invisiblechildren.com or talk to me and I can get it to the group at my HS.
This Film Is Not Yet Rated: about the MPAA and film ratings. Very interesting. I really liked how they pointed out that violence, sexual violence and straight sex (within certain boundaries) were seen as less offensive than consensual sex acts, female orgasms and gay/lesbian sex. Oh, I especially enjoyed the idea violence that is totally fake and shows no blood or real consequences to violent actions is less offensive than orgasms. I find that to be completely ridiculous. Way to teach your children a lesson! There's no way they'll ever do anything wrong or sinful now! Anyway, the guy that made this film has a lot of guts and he exposes a lot of the secrecy behind the ratings system.

The past few days have been 70-80 degrees. Today it's been around 45-50 and rain, rain, rain. It kinda sucks. The students were cranky and restless and we all had headaches and allergies. I guess that's better than the Virginia Plague that seemed to be going around for a solid month there, causing upset stomachs and general weakness everywhere.

hocho and froyo, hallelujah holla back!

It's weird not having a car, but it forced us to finally take a walk. The rain (what VA got of the blizzard that just hit the midwest) finally calmed itself, so we headed over to New Town. Of course, we bought magazines at B&N--I got Venuszine. I like it. It could be that I'm slightly biased cause she's from Michigan, too, but it's a nice music/fashion magazine. Then we went over to the new chocolate shop, Coco chocolatier (could be spelled wrong!) for some hocho (that'd be hot chocolate for those of you that haven't seen that episode of Gilmore Girls or remember Dan W-K's obsession with calling hot chocolate "hocho" when Rocket Star first opened up). They have some delicious looking treats there and their hot chocolate was deeeeeelicious! maybe when it gets warmer, we'll see if Ben & Jerry's has any froyo...
But this post is not about hot chocolate! It's main purpose and hidden agenda is to suggest you check out Meg's blog: http://knittinblues.blogspot.com/. She knits some really amazing stuff. Maybe she'll make something for you.
I've recently finished off some books: Fight Club and My Antonia. They were both okay. Fight Club was one of the few books where I've seen the movie before I read the book. I think the book and movie are actually equal, they did a good job. My Antonia was better than O Pioneers!. I wasn't too sure about it to begin with, but I ended up really liking it. I've started reading Vanity Fair, still slowly making my way through Days of War, Nights of Love (and the more I read, the more it grows on me) and Birthday Letters and started The Sound and the Fury today. I've gotten into a habit of reading more than one book at a time. It keeps me entertained and gives me options.
This weekend we watched quite a few good movies and one really boring one. The Departed, The Science of Sleep and Marie Antoinette were really, really good. My favorite was The Science of Sleep. The Last Kiss was incredibly predictable and boring. I am disappointed in Zach Braff!
I've been trying to start my second issue of my zine, but I'm not sure what to write about. I haven't had the energy, the time or the focus to think much about it, so that could be part of the problem.
If you haven't watched "The (White) Rapper Show", I suggest you do! Ego Trip's shows on VH1 have always cracked me up, this one is absolutely hilarious. It's a lot different than I thought it would be and they make it different from those other reality TV shows. David and I (and a few of my students) have enjoying injecting "Hallelujah holla back", "it's the ghetto revival, baby!", "King of the Burbs!" and all the other stupid sayings that come out of John Brown's mouth into conversations.
I would also like to show off my new bike, it's gorrrrgeous!:

Guillermo del Toro is amazing

I woke up this morning feeling back to myself. This meant we got to go see Pan's Labrynth. You should see it. It was pretty amazing!

absurd

Amazing movie to see: Children of Men. I was totally expecting something with a somewhat good story, but was basically an action movie set in the future, because that's how they made the preview look. But. It was something actually very, very good. I highly recommend it.

Absurd/hilarious thing to see: What Williamsburg's youth do on a Friday night. Which is: hang around New Town. When we came out of the movie, there were not double- no, no- triple the amount of teenagers hanging around outside. It had that wonderful tense feeling before a fight, complete with some kid yelling at another smaller kid. Usually there is only one cop car there, to make sure nothing gets rowdy, but tonight there were five. (Not to insult WBG, but that's probably like their whole force, no?) Anyway, it was crazy. We laughed about it. I am glad I do not teach in this town.

still alive! really!

Long time, no post. This week I either didn't have enough time or energy to post due to being really, amazingly productive, or I didn't feel I had enough to say.
This past week was amazingly productive. I had everything planned out and it all went pretty smoothly. Comparing and contrasting the trailers for "Ju-on" was an amazing thing to do. The kids really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed being able to do that. In my 5th bell, after having a "coming to Jesus" chat with them, they've been a lot better and also supplied me with the funniest thing of this week. Since the computer in the room we have class in doesn't have big speakers, but just the built-in ones, I had them come around the computer and TV area so they could see and hear better. One of my students (whom I adore!) was a little pensive about watching them. In the Japanese release trailer, it starts off very slowly and silently. It pans slowly over to the bed, where the protagonist is laying, and her eyes slowly open and look over to her right. BAM! Sound effect and creepy little kid! It's a very creepy moment that only gets creepier, but at that exact moment, this students jumps and yells a little, causing others to jump and yell. Then we all laughed. It was a good, shared laughter. Some days, I really love that class.
This next school week is going to be awesome because we have only 3 days with students. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday it's school as usual. Tuesday is Teacher Records Day. Friday is Veteran's Day, so we all have it off. The students get a four-day weekend (!!!), we only get a 3 since next Monday is a district-wide prof. development day (joy!).
Since this upcoming weekend is a 3-day weekend, we're going to see Amanda! I am totally excited! We've already figured out what little treats we will be bringing with us. Seeing Philadelphia will be cool and hanging out with Amanda in Philly will make it even better!
This weekend, we went to see The Prestige. If you haven't seen it, I suggest you see it. It was amazing! I love Christopher Nolan's style. The story was great, the actors were some of my favorites and how could you say no to David Bowie as Tesla? It was amazing. When Mr. Bowie first appeared, I heard little whispers around our area in the theatre, "Is that... David... BOWIE?!" I said the same thing to David. haha. We also got Saw 2 and High Tension from Netflix and watched them early and late on Saturday. Saw 2 was okay, there were some pretty nasty parts. High Tension made me feel literally sick to my stomach because I was so uncomfortable. It was an amazingly well done movie. The background music, sound effects, realistic feel and creepy-as-hell twist at the end made me incredibly nervous. I could barely watch it.
Since we've recovered from the shopping trip to Norfolk, we've gone back to our weekly buying of an album each at Plan 9. This week, we found some good deals and both walked away with 2 albums of our choosing. I chose the Blood Brothers's new album (very good!) and Thunderbirds are Now!'s new one (it wasn't there a few weeks ago, I was glad to snag the only copy they had). David found a Hank Williams album and also Kings of Leon. I already know what I'm going to look for next week. Too many good albums out right now! I'm so glad we can finally buy CDs again. Now, if I only had a CD player in my car...
By the way, the picture with this post is Jackie making a frozen pizza box her bed. We left it there for her for 3 days and she kept on using it. What a strange, lovely cat.
Also, happy birthday to Natalie and Chris this upcoming week!