some pretty things

my friend nora is in town this weekend (hooray!) and the sun is out (double hooray!) and life is good.  the first thing you should know about nora is that she makes the best mixed CDs in the world, and she will make one for every fun get-together of far-away friends.  TIPsgiving, reBOONEunion - mixed CDs for each.  making mixed CDs is an art, and nora should give classes.  she made one for me (!) for this weekend, and we've been listening to it in the car with the windows down as we drive around atlanta.  (note: it's only 50 degrees, so the windows aren't down very far.)

in honor of nora's new blog, let me show you some pretty things i own and love.  straight men will probably be bored and should stop reading now.

these are my pretty pink ruffled flats.  i adore them.  they are from old navy, and thus affordable, and that makes me even happier.  ruffles make me happy, because they are a little bit girly without being too girly.  which is maybe the essence of everything i like to wear.

this is my cute new wallet!  in december, i blogged about how much i coveted this wallet and wanted santa to buy it for me for christmas.  so my dad DID, because he is my santa claus.  YAY HOORAY.  it is brown leather with lots of places to store things and is lined with this really beautiful tan/cream print (it's a three fold wallet, but i've opened up one fold so that you can see the lining).  whenever i buy something now - two months after getting it - i still get smiley about how pretty it is.

and that is my fashion round up of the day.

happy last-day-of-february-oh-my-god-i'm-glad-this-cold-month-is-over!

breaking news alert

when my sister misses school, i get a breaking news alert from the new york times.  it is NATIONAL NEWS.  that is crazy to me.

becky doesn't read this blog on a regular basis.  but maybe because it is a SNOW DAY, SNOW DAY, SHE HAS A SNOW DAY! she will.  hi, becks!


Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Fri, February 26, 2010 -- 6:34 AM ET
-----

Public Schools in New York City Closed Because of Snow

All New York City public schools will be closed on Friday in
response to the huge snowstorm that pounded the region
overnight.

Dozens of other school districts in New Jersey, Westchester
County and Long Island also canceled classes on Friday.
Before dawn, snow was still falling heavily, leaving
foot-deep drifts in Times Square and turning roads across the
region into skating rinks.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na

too low to be useful

This study is awesome: Brain Scans Track Hoop Fans' Happy Memories.

My favorite quotation from it:
"A pilot study for the basketball experiment included a half-dozen women who had passed the super-fan test, but even after five or six showings of the game, their recall of the shots was too low to be useful."

I can't stop laughing at this.  We women fans, we are tragic at remembering specific moments of a game.  But honestly, I'm not surprised.  When I coached softball, we'd play a team for the second time that season and the male coach that I worked with would say things like, "remember when we played them last?  Hannah had a double play in the last inning to win it for us!"  And I would have ABSOLUTELY NO MEMORY of this.  I couldn't have told you our record, let alone if we beat a team the last time we played them, LET ALONE specific plays from that game.  Perhaps my brain is programmed differently.  Or perhaps this was not drilled into me as a small child.

Mini test!  My Blue Devils.  I've watched every televised game this season.  What is their record?  I will guess 24-4 overall and 9-2 in the ACC.  Now I will check online.  (Do you like how I am giving you a play-by-play?)  Okay, they are 23-4 and 11-2 in the ACC.  I know about their loses!  And I was pretty close!  I am patting myself on the back right now.

Also, I want to know if I would pass this Duke basketball "super-fan test."  I think I would.  I want to see these questions.

There's a game tonight - rip 'em up, tear 'em up, give 'em hell DUKE!

signs that i am an old lady

ways in which i have become my mother (part 1 of a continuing series also known as as-claire-gets-older-she-becomes-her-mama):
1. i ask my students (mostly girls), "are you warm enough??" when they wear skirts in the winter without tights.  when you are a teenager i know that there is no worse question.  AND STILL I DO IT.  it's like an automatic reaction.  i can't control it.
2. all of our students have laptops that have been provided by the school.  in order to save battery life, many of the kids turn down the brightness level of the screen.  i spend a lot of time saying, "you are hurting your eyes - how can you read that?"  this is the 21st century equivalent of when my mom would say, "do you have enough light to read by?"  when i would say yes, she would turn another lamp on.

i am only 27, team.  if i'm doing this now, what will i be like in 10 years???

i think being a teacher accelerates my travels on the already inevitable path.

[note: i have a pretty awesome mama, so maybe this is an good thing.]

friends

this article talks about google's doodles - you all know how much i love the ones on the olympics that are changing daily.  hooray to willis for passing on this article to me!


on another topic entirely - friends: and let's be honest: i am the luckiest girl EVER to have a lot of friends in my life, people who are so important to my happiness and who care about my well being and who love me all the time, even when i am grumpy or fiesty.  so - yay for my friends.  every single day i am reminded of this.

[now, how do i write this post without making someone sad or left out?  impossible.  i will persevere anyway.  if you read this blog, i love you.  i hope that is enough.  i will call you out on another occasion.]

i'm realizing that while i love all my friends, some friends are the perfect companion for one kind of occasion and other friends are the perfect companion for another kind of occasion.  some examples:

if you want to drink a beer right after school and talk girl talk, willis and jenny are the perfect friends for that.  you just drive over to meehan's and boom: two hours of awesomeness.

if you want to listen to live music in a bar - whether that be a bad 80s cover band or irish music at limerick junction - claire #2 is your woman.

if your garbage disposal breaks - or your tivo is being weird - or you have any question involving your computer - or you are lost near piedmont park - you call thomas.  he can solve pretty much any and all problems of this nature.

if you want to be lame on a friday night and need someone to be lame with you, joey will totally go out to dinner with you and giggle with you and lie around in pajamas in the living room afterward with you and then you can go to bed at an old lady time.  which is so needed sometimes.

attention, attention!  new category that was only realized last night!  if you are going to hear music that is not necessarily your kind of music, at a bar that you've never been to, kind of late on a school night, and you want someone who will roll with the punches and come with you, do not pass go, do not collect $200, CALL ANDERSON AND DANI.  ohmygod we had such a good time last night seeing my cousin nate's band christopher the conquered (and dangerwoman and leslie and the lys).  i thought andy and dani would be the perfect companions, and i was not disappointed.  we planned dani's next birthday party (theme: bedazzled clothing), giggled with my cousin nate and his girlfriend/she'stotallymycousintoo kate, jumped around a little, and called it a night.  so. much. fun.

and i'm exhausted today.  old lady.  that is me.

not lost

you will never believe this.

this morning i went to a breakfast at the ansley golf club, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHERE I WAS LOST ON FOOT ON SUNDAY.  i turn down a road (following my mapquest directions, as i'd never been there before), and realize OHMYGOD I WALKED DOWN THIS ROAD WHEN I WAS LOST.  AND THIS ROAD.  AND I REMEMBER THIS INTERSECTION.  it's hard to forget the intersection of beverly road and friar tuck road.  or beverly road and robin hood road.  yes, those are real life intersections in atlanta, and i have now been there twice.

so i wasn't lost on foot on sunday.  i was just exploring a new neighborhood so when i went to the breakfast this morning i would have some idea of where i was.

right.

but i mean, what are the odds?  i'd never been in this neighborhood before, and then i was there twice (once on purpose, once not) in a 48 hour period.  what a weird world.

i may never live this down

when you have your own blog, you can really present yourself in any way you want.  you can blog only about your good qualities, your accomplishments, moments where you shine.  sometimes you may leave out the less than flattering moments in your life because IT'S YOUR BLOG, DAMN IT.  you can write whatever you want.  you can write about how you eat yummy healthy yogurt most mornings for breakfast, and leave out the fact that a mere day after posting about yogurt you eat an egg and cheese biscuit from chik-fil-a for breakfast.  or that sometimes you eat leftover pizza for breakfast.  (these are just hypotheticals, obviously.)

well, yesterday i did something both dumb and funny, but i did it in front of my friends and they informed me that they expected to hear about it on the blog and that they knew where i lived if i didn't post it.  so readers, here it is: the most embarrassing thing i've done recently.

it was GORGEOUS here on sunday - 65 degrees!  sunny!  breezy!  i kind of lost my mind.  the duke crew (called such because most of us went to duke) decided to go to piedmont park (with the rest of atlanta) to play in the sun.  i called anderson on my way there and he said "park near where you used to park for kickball.  there are a lot of people here, though, so it may be hard to find parking."  check.  i turn down the street near the park where i used to park when coming to play kickball at piedmont park (yes, i was in an adult kickball league for a couple years), but i don't go as far into the neighborhood as usual, thinking it will be hard to find a spot.  i find a spot on the road that isn't in a "residents only" area, park my car, grab my blanket, water bottle, cell phone, and keys, and walk towards the park.

well, i thought i was walking toward the park.  turns out i wasn't.  i walked northeast when i should have walked due east.  no problem, right?  i'll just run into the park further north than i wanted to, but the park is totally due east and i'll be fine.  i realize this as i'm walking through this neighborhood, but i feel pretty good about my sense of direction.  i have to run into piedmont road eventually, and the park is on the other side of piedmont road.

thirty minutes later, there is no park in sight.  (in my mind, this was a 10-15 minute walk i was getting myself into.)  i call thomas.  "um, i'm lost on foot.  help."  his iphone came to the rescue and he got me turned the right way (the conversation involved such phrases as "where is the sun in relation to the direction you are walking?" - that is how tragic i was).  an hour after setting off from my car, i arrived at the park.  my friends clapped for me.  we google-mapped my route.  i was 1.2 miles away from the park when i called thomas.  um, oops.  turns out, piedmont road does not run north-south.  it run northeast-southwest.  i walked parallel to the park for half an hour.

i was wearing flip flops (in my excitement of the sun i decided that it was SUMMER).  my feet hadn't worn flip flops in six months, and certainly didn't expect to walk 2.5 miles in them.  today, my feet hurt a lot.

i am an idiot.  i hope to live this down.  some day.

regional differences

to summarize things we already know:
1. i am tired of winter.
2. i get cold easily.
3. i am a weenie.
4. my family has gone to iowa for the last couple thanksgivings to visit my aunt and uncle and cousins.  this is really fun even though it can be cold and i am a weenie.  i stay inside a lot when i'm there.

things you may not know:
1. my uncle matt walks 15 or so minutes to work in iowa every day of the year, even when it is really cold.  (matt, this is where you respond in the comments and tell us the coldest/grossest day you have ever walked to work and the readers who are southerners start to shiver just thinking about it.)
2. matt had commented on the blog recently about how iowans were really tough, and some of the college students in the town where they live have been known to wear shorts in the winter.  i was flabbergasted by this, and told him i would need photographic evidence.  well, friends, here it is.  ames, iowa - february 2010:

OHMYGOD.  it isn't just winter in iowa, but there are huge snowdrifts AND IT IS CURRENTLY SNOWING and this kid is wearing shorts.  this isn't a scenario in which there was a warm front coming through and this kid was like "i'll wear shorts today - it's supposed to be nice!"  this kid looked out the window, saw snowdrifts, and thought "i'll wear shorts today."

iowans are really tough.

(BIG shout out to my cousin laura for taking this picture!  hi, laura!)

winter beer carnival

i'm going to this with my friends next weekend - including two out of town friends who are coming to visit!!  i am so excited - excited enough to use two exclamations points.  wowsers.  i know.  but beer + carnival games + friends = worthy of two exclamation points.

comparison

willis's breakfast - a sausage mcgriddle and a large sprite.
sausage mcgriddle:
420 calories
22 grams of fat
1,030 mg of sodium (43% of recommended daily value)
11 grams of protein
(i made him read all of this to me from his mcdonald's wrapper.)

eww.  before he told me all of this and i'd just seen the mcdonald's bag, i tried to guess what willis had gotten for breakfast.
me: "a ham and cheese biscuit!"
willis: "gross!  i don't trust mcdonald's ham.  it's a sausage mcgriddle."
me: "but you do trust their sausage??"

my breakfast - a wallaby organic lowfat maple yogurt and water
140 calories
2.5 grams of fat
85 mg of sodium (4% of rdv)
6 grams of protein

i've never been a person who can eat a lot in the morning.  i get up at 6:30,* take a yogurt with me to work, and eat it at about 7:45.  and i have to force myself to do so.  i'm not hungry and eating does not appeal to me that early in the day.  i know that if i DON'T eat something, though, i will be SO HUNGRY I COULD PUNCH SOMEONE at about 10:30am.  at that point, i will eat whatever i can find, and lots of it.  but if i eat a yogurt before work, i'm fine until lunch.  i do not understand how human digestion and metabolization works, but i do know that this works for me, so i do it.

now, i can put away some food at dinnertime.  sometimes, an obscene amount of food.  yum.

that is all.


*already, i am lying to you.  my alarm goes off at 6:25 and i get out of bed at 6:45.  i like the snooze button.

i heart youtube

those readers who could care less about figure skating can stop reading right now.  i promise to stop my figure skating mania when the olympics are over.  but for now: yay for figure skating!

one of nbc's figure skating commentators is a guy named dick button, and they talk about him like he's the best thing since sliced bread.  he (apparently) is the last man to win figure skating gold in two consecutive olympics - the 1948 and 1952 games.  this entertains me greatly, because that was a LONG ASS TIME AGO.  i spent some time thinking today: if a man can do a quadruple axel in competition now and couldn't ten years ago, what was competitive figure skating like 60 years ago?  answer: silly.  through the wonders of youtube, i bring you footage of dick button's gold medal winning performances in 1948 and 1952.

silly things:
1. 1948 - they skated outside!
2. the skaters look like waiters (rhymes!) - they are wearing ties and tuxedo-like outfits.  johnny weir does not wear a tie.
3. dick button won a gold medal with THAT performance?  and another gold medal with the THAT one?  i would like to see the performance of someone who didn't place.  i predict they just skated around in circles.  (okay, okay, i can't even come close to dick button's performance.  i'll give the man his due.  he jumps really high and doesn't fall and some of the elements are identical to today's performances.  but still.  silliness.)

on figure skating

if you go to http://www.google.com/, every day during the olympics they are posting a new "google" image involving the olympics, and (i know this makes me a nerd) they are really gorgeous.  whoever is doing the computer graphics for google right now needs a raise.  do you hear that, google?  give him a raise!

on a slightly unrelated note, i totally have the hots for bryce davison, the canadian olympics pairs figure skater.  be still, my beating heart.  here is a new rule i have concocted: male figure skaters who skate in the pairs competition are more masculine than male figure skaters who skate in the individual competition.  i will use bryce davison and johnny weir to prove my point.  i love watching johnny weir skate.  he is GOOD.  and his outfits make me giggle.  here's another example to entertain you.  but do i have the hots for him?  negative.  i just want him to be my younger brother.

rant for the day

i am a stickler for spelling and grammar.  i know when you should say less and when you should say fewer, the you're/your difference, the their/they're/there difference, when an apostrophe is necessary.  i know not to split infinitives and not to end a sentence with a preposition.  sometimes i am too lazy to figure out how to write a sentence so that it doesn't end with a preposition, but i know it's wrong.  so there.

i grew up next door to my grandma.  my grandma was an english teacher.  my grandma didn't (doesn't) take any shit from anyone, and she didn't take any bad grammar from her grandchildren.  even today, at 90 years old, if you play scrabble with my grandma: be on your toes.  she will play words that you didn't even know existed.

i have little to no patience for people who don't know these differences, or who don't care enough to read over their writing.

my favorite recent grammatical tragedy, by an ADULT: "i don't read very much, but i would have to say the last book i red was a magazine."

there are no words for how quickly i was turned off by this person.  um, you obviously don't read a lot, buddy.  i can tell.

i realize that this fanaticism about grammar may make me a bitch.  i don't care.  sometimes, for fun, i read articles or blogs like this.  just so i know i'm not alone.

when students write poorly, i use my red pen and make big circles around the tragedies.  i don't tell them in particular what they've done wrong.  they're in 12th grade.  they can figure it out on their own.  i don't think they realize how much of a grammar and spelling fanatic i am.  i try to hide my crazy side from most people.  but not you, blog readers.  not you.

chocolate for valentine's day

for valentine's day (spent in pajamas with erin and claire #2, watching movies), i made these Chocolate Puddle Cookies - and took a picture so you can (maybe) see what they look like.  they were really easy to make and delish and many still reside in my fridge (i need to take them to work tomorrow).  they are dangerously delicious and not very good for you, so i can't let them stay in my house for too long.  i got the recipe off of a blog i read called "101 cookbooks" (the number of cookbooks, apparently, that the author owns).  it's a great blog if you're looking for organic or healthy-but-still-tasty recipes.  check her out.

i had to learn how to toast walnuts in order to make this recipe.  yes, this is not hard, but i'd never done it before, so - good rule follower that i am - i looked up a how-to guide.

on the olympics

if your country brings only one athlete, i will get a little teary for that athlete - he or she will probably not medal or even be in the top half of competitors.  money for training is probably scarce, training facilities and coaches not close to as good as a country like mine has.  but to represent your country - and to be the only person in your country to have qualified to do so - what a great honor.  i will get teary in the parade of nations.  like i did last night.  (and the republic of georgia, walking in the parade of nations after one of their athletes died that day in a luge training run?  wow.  they didn't wave flags or smile or engage the crowd...they looked like it was all they could do to keep it together and walk.  so sad.  and so brave.)

i also get teary for national anthems.  when they are played because a nation's olympian has won a gold medal, no matter how silly your event (biathlon comes to mind), when you take the podium and the whole place gets silent to hear your nation's anthem - i will get teary.

i can't help these things.

photo shoot

joey and i decided to take some roommate pictures in the snow - we have so few pictures of just the two of us, and we clearly needed to document the snow for all of our non-atlanta readers.  hope everyone's having a good friday!

we live on the second floor...so you can barely see our balcony in this photo.  this is our version of the couple-in-front-of-their-first-home picture.  we giggled a lot as i set the timer on my camera and then scampered across the street to join joey for this picture.  i did not slip in the slush and fall.  i'm quite proud of myself.

and now...

...snow is actually falling from the sky.  it's 1:30pm.  after a yummy lunch at taqueria with willis and a trip to the grocery store (not for bread and milk: for sprite & the ingredients for chocolate walnut cookies - if i'm snowed in, those things will be more important for me to have at hand), i'm back at home, in my pajamas, and on the couch.  i don't expect to emerge until tomorrow.

snow is pretty.

sniffle + snow day

well, i'm sick.  sore throat, stuffy nose, head-feels-like-it-is-three-times-its-normal-size-like-in-the-commercials sick.  i haven't had a cold since this summer (and THAT was weird -a summertime cold?  i think it was a mild case of the swine flu, and i'm sticking with that story), and i guess i'm due for one.  but yuck.

only positive?  WE HAVE A SNOW DAY TODAY.  i didn't see this coming at all, and when willis stopped by world peace cafe when i was working last night and told me (i hadn't gotten the "alert now" message on my cell phone because i'd left my phone in the car), i thought he was joking.  the weather reports are that there is an 80% change we'll get 1-3 inches of snow today, so our head of school cancelled school at 9pm yesterday.  are you KIDDING me?  not one drop of precipitation has fallen from the sky in the 10 hours since he cancelled school.

living in the south is ridiculous sometimes.

now, it may get wintery here in a minute or in an hour, but i maintain that we could have at least had half a day of school before going home.  the teacher in me is screaming: we have a test next week!  i have material to get through!

not that i'm complaining too much, though, because i feel like crap right now.  i'm happily in my pajamas with a box of kleenex by my side, drinking lots of crystal light pink lemonade and watching tv.  i'm going out to lunch with willis, but the rest of my friday will consist of more of the same: couch time.  my exciting friday night plans: watching the opening ceremonies of the winter olympics.  be jealous of my life right now.

if i have bags under my eyes tomorrow, it will be from staying up late tonight...

jenny and i have talked a fair amount about who our favorite duke player will be once jon scheyer graduates (right now he's at the top of both our lists).  i am tending toward nolan smith - let's be honest, i like guards who shoot well.  jenny is tending toward kyle singler.  singler hasn't had a great season - he's averaging 16 points a game, but somehow that doesn't feel great yet.  and then last week he made 8 3-pointers on an injured wrist, including 4 in a row.  so he's moving up both of our lists.

for now, i'll be content to adore jon scheyer.

duke vs. carolina, round 1 is tonight at 9pm.  even though duke is ranked (yay!) and carolina isn't (woo hoo!), it's still bound to be a good game.  it's duke-carolina, for heaven's sake.  it's always a good game.

GO TO HELL, CAROLINA, GO TO HELL!

question

so how do you know which melon to buy at the grocery store?  i was at trader joe's yesterday, standing over a big box of melons, and i had no idea which one to buy.  do you look for color?  do you smell it?  do you rap on it with your knuckles and listen to something?  note: i did all of these things.  and looked like a fool.  they all looked/smelled/sounded the same and i had no idea which one was the best one to buy.  so i randomly picked one.  and it's a little under-ripe.  perhaps that is because it is february, but these melons grew up somewhere warmer, so maybe that doesn't matter.  i feel like this is one of those secrets of adulthood that i have yet to be let in on: how do you choose a melon?

help.

reason #441 why i love my job

my AP government students just finished a project where they picked a federal agency and did research on what the agency does, how the agency has changed under the obama administration, what bills are pending before congress that relate to their agency, etc.  one of my kids is notorious for writing more than my minimum requirements.  minimum page length for this part of the project: 3 pages.  she wrote: 9 pages.  this is what she wrote in an email to me when she sent me her project:

Ok, so I got a little bit carried away and went totally overboard. Sorry, I just got really into the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

and, friends, she's not being facetious.  i love my quasi-nerdy kids.

customers

while working at world peace this weekend, a woman was really rude to me - the rudest customer i've yet encountered while working there.  and i know these people exist in the world - and i know everyone is fighting their own battles and dealing with their own difficulties - but this woman made me feel like an idiot several times over as i was ringing up her order - she talked to me like she was important and i should hurry up and know what she wanted before she even said it out loud.  as an example: we had a minute-long discussion while a line formed behind her about whether the bread was wheat or multigrain and she had had multigrain when she was here before (not possible, said the chef, when i went to ask) and she guessed wheat was okay if that's all i could offer her.  and then: for the first time ever, i charged her credit card the wrong amount and had to grab our manager to fix it for me.  and i felt like she was justified in believing i was an idiot, because i couldn't even ring up her order.  i gave myself a 5 minute breather in the kitchen to fume about it (and warm up by the ovens - it was cold this weekend and the cold permeates into the front of the restaurant...).

so, i was flustered and grumpy.  but i took a deep breath and traded with the manager (who'd been ringing up orders while i pulled myself together).

and then this happened: two little girls with messy blonde hair and gaps in their smiles from losing teeth came up to the register with their dad's credit card and proceeded to place a very complicated order involving an omelet with nothing but cheese in it and what kind of cheese was it?  and did it come with potatoes on the side?  and toast?  they didn't want potatoes.  but the toast: yes.  lots of toast.  and a strawberry cupcake.  and when i told them all these things were fine, and rang them in, they were so excited about their omelets (one clapped, i think) and the older girl signed their dad's signature on the receipt and i could read her mind: "i am a grown up paying with a credit card and signing a receipt."  and i forgot about the crazy lady who'd made me grumpy earlier.

and this: a woman with down's syndrome came in alone, bought lunch - another semi-complicated order involving one dish for here and one to take home for later, ate it, came back to the front of the restaurant, perused the jewelry in the little shop we have.  i saw her smiling at this pretty flowered necklace that i have also been admiring.  she brought it up to the register and paid for it and left and i imagined how hard her life must be (or maybe it isn't, and i'm being patronizing) and whether she gets judged for having down's and how happy that necklace made her.  and the world was okay again.

instead of watching the superbowl

my night:
manicure and pedicure - the first i've had since september and a needed splurge.  i read a whole newsweek while the ladies at my favorite nail place worked on my nails.  GLORIOUS.  i will spend the rest of the night trying not to smudge it.  so far: success.
leftover pasta i made on friday night: asparagus, peas, and parmesan cheese with whole wheat linguine and pesto.  it is really, really delicious.
watching season 2 of big love from netflix.  fictional polygamists are entertaining.
reading a reliable wife, my newest purchase from borders.

i love sunday evenings.

and i might, just might find out who won the football game.  if this is like past years, though, that game will be going on until past my bedtime, and no way will i be staying up late for a football game.

words on a friday

found this quotation somewhere and it really stuck out to me.  i present it without commentary:

loyalty to the country always.  loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
-- mark twain

yum

i tried this new recipe last night and it was DELICIOUS: fiery sweet potatoes (from the new york times).  they are pretty spicy in that thai curry spicy way, but you could tone down the curry if you wanted to.  sweet potatoes are one of those foods that people say are healthy and magical and have vitamins and such.  they are also, conveniently, tasty.  i like baked sweet potatoes and sweet potato fries and now i like this.  HOORAY.

another reason you wish you worked at my school

An email conversation between me and one of my coworkers -  the man I would marry if I were 70 (like him) or he were 27 (like me).  I adore him.

Email from me to all teachers of 11th graders:
Hi all -
We haven’t met in a while, but this Thursday our first 11th grade team meeting of the semester is scheduled – 7:45am in room 105. I’ll bring some breakfast. Please be thinking about student concerns that you’d like to bring up. [Principal] would also like your feedback on whether we should hold any students’ contracts because of behavioral or academic concerns. These would need to be pretty serious concerns...but be thinking, and let us know.

Thanks -
Claire and [my co-Dean]


Reply from my BFF:
Will be there. Only contract I know about is Willis's. He hates me.

Sent from my iPhone

[Let's just take a moment for the fact that he is 70 (literally) and has - and uses effectively - an iPhone.]


So I replied:
Rumor has it that Willis wants YOUR contract held. Ooooooooh! Fight, fight, fight!


My BFF:
A food fight it will be. Game on ! Will you be my second in case I should fall ?

Sent from my iPhone


Me:
Um, of course! And in the meantime, I will pour water into your mouth and wipe your brow during the fight – you obviously won’t be able to, as you’ll be wearing boxing gloves.


My BFF:
OMG. Don't tell Willis.

Sent from my iPhone


I then forwarded my BFF's email to Willis, who replied:

I will win. Because he’s the 1 person on faculty I walk faster than. Though I really should be ashamed because he’s more than twice my age.


[Note to readers who aren't under the age of 30: BFF=best friend forever, and it is what middle school girls call each other.  I like to appropriate those kinds of phrases and use them as my own.]

the oscars

okay, let me tell you about what i think about the oscars.  who should win, who shouldn't.  i don't care very much about what "experts" or "analysts" think.  i am my own expert.

best picture:
if avatar wins, i will punch someone (probably the couch).  i think that if you have made a movie about aliens, you should be automatically disqualified.  this would nix district 9, too.  note: i have not seen avatar and i will not be seeing avatar.  but i am dismissing it anyway.
up should win best animated feature film, HANDS DOWN.  but it shouldn't win best picture.  because i have that reserved for the next film on my list. [fun trivia fact (thank you new york times): up is only the second animated film to be nominated for best picture.  the first was in 1992.  can you name it?]
i neeeeeed the hurt locker to win. i don't like war movies (they stress me out and make my stomach hurt and put my nerves on edge, and i generally try to avoid that when watching a movie for pleasure), but somehow i was compelled to see this one, and i'm really glad i did.  i had to leave the room for one scene (you'll know which one if you see the movie), but overall, i was so captivated by the characters and how beautifully filmed it was and how subtle it was.  avatar does not strike me as subtle.  the hurt locker was.  i think it helps that the film follows one group of men in one small unit, and you see the war - and the country of iraq - from their eyes.  it's personal stories that take place during a war, not a war movie.  and i couldn't stop thinking about it.

i've got some movies i need to watch - a single man, the last station, an education, a serious man.  i have 32 days. [amusing note: the closest theater to atlanta that is showing the last station is (according to moviefone.com) in TORONTO, 706.8 miles away from my current location.  this entertains me greatly.]

what do you guys think about the oscar nominations?  (if you care, that is...)

5 things i've learned in 5 years of teaching

1. it doesn't bode well for a kid's grade if you need a calculator to be sure you've correctly added up the points on his test.  [or, perhaps, it speaks to my math skills.]

2. remember when you were a student and you were whispering in class and your teacher ALWAYS knew it was you?  teachers don't have super sonic hearing...students just whisper really loudly.

3. when a student gets a detention, it is also a punishment for the adult who proctors the detention.  i didn't do anything wrong!  why do i have to get to school early and sit silently in a room for an hour?

4. the freshman hallway smells like b.o. and the sophomore hallway smells like axe body spray (to cover up the b.o.).  by junior year they have learned how to use deodorant to stop the smell from getting started in the first place.  i'm so glad i work with juniors.

5. kids surprise you a lot.  sometimes it's for a bad reason, but more often it's for a good one.  that's what makes going to work every day worthwhile.  on thursday i found out that a student of mine had received an award from the atlanta rotary club - one student every year gets the award from each high school in the city.  this is a special little award, in that the student gets to pick a teacher to honor, too, with an accompanying award.  and our student this year picked me!  i'm really and truly touched...especially because i never would have guessed that she would pick me.  you never know whom you affect, i guess.  (though you can usually guess who you DON'T...)  the cutest part?  she and the college counselors were told to keep it a secret from me until i got my letter from the rotary club.  which made it that much more fun.

basic math

if i am watching a movie and a character with a bad southern accent enters a scene, i lose a lot of respect for the actor playing this role.  if this character with a bad southern accent plays a prominent role in the film, i am unable to get over this and begin to hate the movie.  what are these directors thinking?  you aren't kidding us.  i'd rather have an unknown actress from the region the film is set in than a famous actress who has to fake it.  perhaps i am in the minority here.

case in point: last night i watched elizabethtown, an okay movie that certainly entertained me, but kirsten dunst's poor attempt at a southern accent ANNOYED THE CRAP OUT OF ME and caused me to dislike the movie.  and this wasn't just a bad southern accent, it was SOMETIMES a bad southern accent, sometimes no accent at all.  and that is a worse sin.  and then the plot line moved from "improbable" to "inconceivable" and i had to stop myself from rolling my eyes so hard that i gave myself a headache.  good music, entertaining movie, but friends: it is not worth seeing.

have you ever seen songcatcher?  this movie IS AMAZING and you need to put it in your netflix queue pronto.  one of the best parts of this movie: the girl (played by emmy rossum, who is from NEW YORK CITY) has the most believable appalachian mountain accent i have ever heard.  i'd never heard of the actress when i saw the movie, and my initial thought was "where did they find this mountain girl?"  IT IS THAT BELIEVABLE.  and for that reason, among many others, songcatcher > elizabethtown.