i went to the olympics and it was better than i could ever have imagined.

my friends philippa, mike, larry, and larry's son jakob got tickets through the online (authorized) resale market that is only available to the brits (phil and mike are both british and thus able to buy these tickets).  tickets would pop up and then disappear as people bought them, so we stalked the website a lot hoping to find something good.  this popped up a couple weeks ago and we pounced on them.  we liked that we got a lot of tennis, too - 8 hours for a 40 pound ticket.  we bought the "B" class tickets, which meant we wouldn't have the best ("A") seats, but the next level up (the classes went up to "E").

olympic tennis is at wimbledon, and on monday when we went there were matches from 11:30am-8pm on 12 courts!  12!  you could buy one of three kinds of tickets: tickets to centre court, tickets to court 1, or tickets that didn't allow you access to either of those courts but allowed you to sit at any of the other 10 courts on a first come, first serve basis.  we had court 1 tickets, which meant we had an actual seat at court 1 but could walk into any of the 10 other courts (except centre), too.  (i feel like i'm making this explanation very confusing, so i hope you understand.  actual seat at court 1; ability to see matches at 10 additional courts if there was a free seat.)

we arrived at noon, and i did the smartest thing i could have possibly done: i took photos of the big board that showed which matches were being played at which court.  i am a genius.

(one of many such photos.  apparently the dutch fans like cheese hats just like wisconsin fans.)

throughout the day we would refer back to the photos to decide where to head next.  first stop, court 2 to watch andy roddick play (he won).

next stop, our reserved seats at court 1 to watch serena play!  court 1 was much bigger than 2 - and let me take a minute here to say that the courts ranged in size from "oh, is that a match?" with benches to seat maybe 20 fans on the pathway between the larger courts...to a couple hundred...to several thousand seats.

serena killed this tiny polish girl.  poor polish girl.

do you see the sun?  THERE WAS SUN ALL DAY!  I GOT A SUNBURN ON MY NOSE!  incredible weather.

then we went back to court 2 because the afternoon match there looked amazing - williams sisters!  my (excellent) plan was that we would get there before the williams sisters played their doubles match because i figured that would fill up quickly.  we arrived in the middle of a match between a german dude and a serbian dude that was really fun (probably my favorite match of the day, actually - the serbian fans were crazy and there was lots of banter - and the two men were pretty equally matched.  also!  as the german lost he had a hissy fit and slammed his racket into his shoe four or five times, breaking it in half.  omg!  eek!  we were near his (pregnant) wife, who was not amused with him).  the crowd was pretty small when we arrived, so we walked ALL THE WAY TO THE FRONT ROW AND SAT DOWN.  after about two minutes i realized it was too close (too close!  i was too close at the olympics!) because it was right in the line of the serve and i genuinely thought i might get hit in the face by their 200 km/h serves and die.  we moved back one row.

so i watched venus and serena play doubles from the second row - with this view:

incredible.  the place was entirely full by the time the match started, and my get-there-early plan was a huge success.

hi ladies.

if you, like me, are not a huge tennis fan, you might think "i can't tell venus and serena apart!"  you are kidding yourself, as i was.  you just haven't been paying attention.  serena has probably 40 pounds on venus.  i was scared of serena.

the five of us in our seats!

then it was off to court 1 again to watch federer play doubles.  while court 1 was bigger, i loved the intimacy of court 2, especially when it was full...and being in the second row DID NOT HURT MATTERS.

the swiss playing the japanese.  stop wearing the same colors and confusing me.

it got cold.  we put on our jackets.  federer served at 211 km/h.  omg.  there was a tie breaking point thing that i had to learn about.  earlier in the day i learned not to call deuce "a 40-40 tie" [jenny is totally rolling her eyes at this - sorry, jenny!].  philippa and mike were excellent teachers.  i decided i like the fast pace of doubles much better than singles.

honestly?  one of the most fun days EVER.  excellent company, amazing seats, fun matches, great atmosphere, sunshine, understanding in the moment that i was incredibly incredibly lucky to be able to experience all of this.  i'm not a huge tennis fan, but the ability to be so close totally hooked me.  we couldn't have asked for a better day - better tickets - better matches - better anything.  (actually, wrong.  better vegetarian food.  i could have asked for that.)

40 pounds incredibly well spent.

i'm back in atlanta!  hooray!

an update on miss claire's whereabouts:

today: oxford, packing up the office and finishing work.
monday: wimbledon, for olympics tennis!
tuesday: in the air, flying back to atlanta!

meet my new best friend, george.

george is the 6 year old son of one of the college employees.  for two years i've been telling george's dad that he should bring george for a visit, as i'd heard about how cute and red-headed he is.  yesterday george came to help his dad around college.

after helping his dad, he came for a visit.  and by "visit," i mean it went something like this.

me: "we're watching olympics rowing!"
george: "i can draw that!"  [disappears to his dad's office for 10 minutes.  comes back with picture.]

pretty good, huh?!

i thanked george and he said, "i have more paper!"

i can take a hint.  it became a game - what other olympics sports could george draw?

this is shooting.  as you are probably aware, the people at the top are spectators, the guy in green is the referee blowing his whistle, and the other two are in the competition.  the bottom guy is saying "oh no" because he shot too low.  those enormous red and green blobs are the bullets, obviously.

the next picture is my favorite:

BMX cycling is now in the olympics and george loves that.  this is "gerney" (germany) and "team gb" (great britain - but now that the olympics have started "team gb" is the preferred phrase for cheering, i've learned) in a race.  gerney is winning, but george says "the team in second place at the beginning always wins at the end."  this picture is my favorite because:
1. george has misspelled his own name
2. george is using his "joined up" (what the british call cursive) writing very nicely here
3. george, at 6, is already aware of his country's rivalry with germany in all sports.  my first summer here i was very confused about why germany was the hated rival, and a colleague said it is because they were the enemy during world war 2.  well yes, i know that...but they were our enemy in world war 2, too, and i wouldn't think of them that way now.  but the english home front WAS much more affected by bombings and such during the war, so perhaps i can understand the difference...

“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing.”
--Susan B. Anthony

christ church college from a rooftop patio in oriel college:

fun quiz to help you know which presidential candidate your views most closely match with!

(i found that there were often better answers in "choose another stance," so don't feel constrained by just answering yes or no.)

a couple months ago i decided that the best thing i could do to help barack win in november was convince some friends who were on the fence that he was the better candidate.  if i could help sway two people that would make a difference!  (maybe.  not really.  silly electoral college...)  i've been sending these two friends occasional articles about what obama's done as president and why i think he's the right choice in november, and yesterday one of them emailed me to tell me she was on the obama team now.  (!!)

it pretty much made my day.

one down, one to go.  anonymous friend #2: i'm still working on you.  we've got 3 months.  my efforts will only intensify!  get excited!

old lady alert: i'm so bad at sleeping in these day.  i used to be a champion sleeper, my peak coming when i slept until 3pm one day during a visit home from college.  now i'm lucky if i can sleep until 10 or 11...and i feel so gross when i do.  this morning?  awake at 7:30am, unable to fall back asleep.  now, my room is not the cave that my room in atlanta is, so the light streaming through the cracks in the curtains isn't helping matters, so perhaps that is as much to blame as my impending 30th birthday...

yesterday liz, jen, and i went on this adventure!: http://goo.gl/maps/54JI6

we walked from downtown oxford to port meadow and along the isis river...

(very wind in the willows, huh?)

...to a pub called the trout, where we had a great lunch before walking back home.  it was hot here yesterday - in the 80s - and we sweated the whole way, but it was a great adventure and we earned our lunch.  along the way we passed the ruins of godstow abbey, which is REALLY OLD and very pretty.  it dates from almost exactly the same time as the events in the pillars of the earth, which i just started reading...so that was fun to think about.*

i am accidentally a little sunburned now.  for the past four weeks there was no physical way to get sunburned through the rain drops and dark clouds, so i kind of forgot what the sun can do.  it's just a baby sunburn, though, so i'll be okay.


*as a side note, people never told me how awesome the pillars of the earth is.  yes, they told me i should read it, but it has also been described to me as the story of the building of a cathedral.  to me, that sounded dry and hard to slog through, so i put it off.  they should have to described it to me as the story of the PEOPLE who were involved in the building of a cathedral, because ohmygoodness i am loving this book and it is so readable and not dry at all.  now that i'm awake far before my shift in the office today (i'm on from 4pm to midnight) and the weather is just as beautiful as yesterday, i'll be spending most of the day reading my book in christ church meadow, and i couldn't be more excited.  the kids leave on saturday, so we're preparing for the run to the end - i have to take as much claire time as possible before the chaos begins on friday!

good morning, oriel college!  it's sunny today!

i love this sentiment, and it's so important to be reminded of:

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
-- Mark Twain

i subscribe to the sun magazine, thanks to other claire, who gave it to me as a christmas present last year.  it is an ad-free magazine out of chapel hill, north carolina that is full of pretty excellent nonfiction.  one feature in every issue is "readers write," where readers write in on a topic and the best get published in the magazine.  this is always my favorite part of the issue, and i LOVED these thoughts on the topic of "the best feeling in the world."  (the physical magazine has dozens of them in every issue, though only three are available online - but you'll get the picture.)

i know there are some of you lovely readers out there who will really enjoy this!

we're entering the final week of the program - the kids leave next saturday the 28th, and then i fly home on tuesday the 31st.  it's shocking how fast the summers go by when i'm over here.  i have LOVED having so many coworkers (some returning, some new) this summer who are such good friends - some seen below - and we've had a LOT of fun over the past four weeks.  (i do this job for the fun i have with my coworkers, not for the kids.  shhh - don't tell.)

(AND: three of the four of us in this picture will live in new york next year - yippee!)

this is the point in the summer where i start to feel the pressure for all the things i haven't yet done.  i haven't spent an afternoon walking through port meadow to the pub on the other side.  i haven't been into london to see a show.  i haven't spent enough lazy afternoons in christ church meadow reading my book (because it has rained so. much. this. summer.  but the weather report for the rest of the time i'm here?  glorious!).  i haven't talked nearly enough to my other friend claire who is in cambridge.  so: i have one week to try to rectify these things.

in the excitement of bill clinton day, i forgot to tell you guys that i am going to the olympics!!!!  there are random tickets available online for uk citizens to purchase - if i'm understanding it right, in order to get rid of as much of a black market as possible, any uk citizen can return any ticket to the olympics people and get a full refund if it is resold.  as a result, for every day of the olympics there are dozens of tickets to random events available - some very expensive, some very reasonable.  a uk friend bought tickets the other day and five of us are going to olympic tennis at wimbledon the day before i leave.  so exciting!  i don't really care about tennis, but it is a sport i understand, unlike, say, judo...and it's the olympics!  hooray!

so: final week in england, here we come...

what i'm listening to right now

i saw christina perri at hard rock calling in london last week - she was one of many artists who played in the lead up to paul simon.  i hadn't heard of her before, but as she sang i realized i knew several of her songs - the radio, i guess?  this one is my favorite - "arms":



you know how some bands are disappointing live, though you like their CDs?  i found that with the avett brothers - they did a lot of SCREAMING live, instead of singing.  boo hiss.  christina perri was AWESOME live - this song doesn't match how great her energy was when she was on stage.  she only sang for about 45 minutes and even though i didn't know a lot of her songs i wanted her to keep playing - definitely a good sign.

things i love about england: their domestic fruit is labeled with the name of the grower and where his farm is!  angus davison grew me these raspberries.  knowing this little detail pleases me - it connects me in a tiny way with the origin of my food.  it personalizes the experience of eating.

the raspberries were delicious.  i ate them yesterday while lying in christ church meadow and reading my book WHILE THE SUN SHONE ON ME.  today?  today it is raining again, but yesterday there was sun...so that's something.

“No man ever listened himself out of a job.”
--Calvin Coolidge

paul simon was amazing.

(blue skies!  sun!  it didn't rain a drop!  after the summer we've been having in england, this is a miracle.)

i danced around and sang along and had a huge smile on my face for three hours.  paul simon is 70, but most of the time you couldn't tell - his voice was great, he danced around a little, he played for three hours.  he played with 5 members of his band from when he recorded graceland, plus 3 background singers from the album, plus ladysmith black mambazo for a couple songs.  it was awesome.  they sounded GOOD.

one of the coolest things was being in this huge throng of people - 60,000 is what the newspapers are saying - and every person was singing along.  to be a paul simon fan at that concert was incredible, but to share it with this enormous crowd was even cooler.  and, um, i was in the 5th row.  5th row!  there was music starting at 2pm, and paul simon was scheduled to start at 7:45.  we got there at 2:30 and marched our way as close to the front as we could and then stayed there - minus one bathroom break by yours truly - as the crowd grew and grew behind us.  the view behind me:

(there's an even better photo of the crowd from the concert website here.)

the view in front of me:

(okay, this is really the view in front of cole, who's a whole foot taller than me.  my view was between the two guys' heads who were standing in front of me, but i could see nonetheless!)

he played every song from the graceland album plus lots of well known songs.  his encore included "the boxer" with jerry douglas on dobro.  INCREDIBLE.

the concert was everything i wanted it to be and lots lots lots more.  an amazing night.  it felt like i was watching - was a part of - something really special.

it's paul simon day!!!

who's opening for him?  alison krauss and union station.  i die.

in honor of that, i give you this:



full report tomorrow!

great article - it gives me chills - and i know i'll get teary when i see the saudi women walking in the opening ceremonies.

Saudi Arabia agreed to send two women to compete at the London Olympics, meaning that for the first time all participating nations will have female athletes competing; and, also for the first time, the United States Olympic team will field more female athletes than male athletes. 
The appearance of women from each of the 200-plus participating nations captures the sea change across the sports landscape. Until the 1984 Los Angeles Games, women were not even allowed to run a marathon. Less than 20 years ago, at the 1996 Atlanta Games, 26 countries did not send women.

scenes from around oxford - cow bell next to the door outside my favorite pub!

this is what happens to the number of views of your blog when you tell facebook about your blog...and that they have to go there for the bill clinton story:

what i'm listening to right now:

bison, "switzerland":



this song, and the previous one i posted, are from a FREEEEEE 33 song sampler from an organization called noisetrade.  my friend christy (hi christy!) told me about them, as she and i have very similar musical tastes, and she was right in thinking that i would love it.  they give away free music directly from the artist, with donations accepted but (as far as i can tell) not required.  check it out!  by "liking" them on facebook you can get the same 33 song sampler that i got.  THIS SAMPLER IS AWESOME and i've been listening to it on repeat for the past week.  get itttttt.

today i met bill clinton.

here is the full story.

after lunch a faculty member comes rushing into the office to tell us that he's just passed bill clinton on the high street.  we are shocked!  bill is in town!  one of the admin members goes to stalk him and finds that he has landed at the bear, a pub right around the corner from our college.  four of us rush out - my friend liz (also in the photo), larry, and michael.  we're all americans, we're all democrats, and we're all freaking out.

we get to the bear, where there are several security guards standing around and trying to look nonchalant.  liz and i go inside (NO ONE STOPS US) and into the doorway of the room where bill is sitting.  total, there were about 15 security guys in the tiny pub, drinking beers and waiting for their lunch, and bill is chatting away with these two americans who i think were sitting there when he arrived.  there isn't a huge crowd - we appear to be his only stalkers so far.  he is VERY thin, but it is him.

one security guy comes up to us and says "are you just going to stand there gawking?  he's trying to eat his lunch!"  i apologize (ahh!  i hate confrontation!) and say we can go, which he clearly wants us to.  i lean over to liz and tell her this.  as we're backing out of the room, bill yells "do those girls want a picture?"  WE DO, and we rush back inside, where bill shakes our hands and pats the bench beside him so we can take a picture.  I AM SITTING NEXT TO BILL CLINTON.  our friend larry walks in, and we introduce him, and then for 20 minutes - no exaggeration - we talk to bill about how we're teachers (he calls it "the noblest of professions," and thanks us for our work), and he proceeds to chat with us about romney's jobs plan and how it won't work, his thoughts on charter schools, and how paying teachers more will help improve student achievement.  he's a talker, a policy guy, making eye contact and making us feel really special as he rambles on with his thoughts on any number of subjects.  after about 10 minutes his food arrives (he had tomato soup and a guinness), and i try to leave - "thank you so much for talking with us - we don't want to interrupt your meal!" AND HE KEEPS TALKING.  we stay, obviously.  at some point he's talking about chelsea and how she's overextended and he's never going to get grandchildren at this rate and how he's lived longer than all of his grandparents except the one who wore overalls all day and farmed from sunup to sundown, but with all the new technology women can have children so much longer, and if chelsea has a kid when she's 50 he'll be 84 and that will be fine.  liz tells him at least chelsea's married - that liz and i are basically chelsea's age and are behind her on that front - AND BILL GRABS LIZ'S ARM AND OFFERS SOME DATING ADVICE: "worry about the other things" - as in, the man will come when you stop worrying about it.

oh, bill.  we enjoy you.

finally he says, "it was so nice meeting you guys," and we thank him profusely and tell him we're proud democrats and shake hands again and say our goodbyes.  we freak out only when we leave the bar, calling our parents on the office phone and skipping around and reenacting the conversation for everyone.  i think about how i would love to call my grandma, if she were alive, to tell her all about it.  she'd have something witty and racy to say.  it would be awesome.  it still IS awesome, of course, but it would be awesomer.

aaaaaaand then the shit hit the fan at work.  but that is a story for another day, probably not on this blog...

“If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.”
--Woody Allen

this - this right here - is the kind of writer i want to be.  beautiful and touching and honest, and he says so much in only three paragraphs:

"one last lesson"

broughton castle

so...we took a field trip with all 440 students to broughton castle.  it poured down rain the whole time.  after the tour of the castle we had to be outside.  there was no shelter.  it was the opposite of fun.

huddling under umbrellas in the rain:

moat around the castle...in the rain:

graveyard* at the chapel...in the rain:

aaaaaand that was the field trip.

um...it has rained a lot here since we arrived.  sun!  we need you!  please come back!


*fun fact - anyone know the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard?  there is one!

what i'm listening to right now:

"guttersnipe," by bhi bhiman:



this song makes me want to dance around my dorm room.  so i kind of am.

vin came to visit me in oxford!

she brought two of her london friends and we went punting.  talia had punted before, so she was in charge.  yay!  thanks, talia!

it rained a bit, but nothing too crazy.  there was lots of laughing - such a fun day!

we ended the night at an italian place in town, where michelle kwan was sitting two tables away!  liz, my coworker here, is a former ice skater and was gutsy enough to go up to her, so i came along for moral support / to talk to michelle kwan obviously!!!  turns out that michelle is a torchbearer for the olympics, chosen by one of the olympics sponsors, coca-cola.  she was SO NICE, asking us if why we were in oxford and seeming genuinely interested that we are teachers.  while liz chatted with michelle and michelle's boyfriend, i chatted with the two coca-cola employees who were schmoozing her at dinner - they live in atlanta.  exact transcript of part of the conversation:
michelle: where do you guys live?
liz: new york city
me: atlanta
coca-cola lady #1: us too!  where in atlanta do you live?
me: vinings! [i move over to chat with coca-cola ladies while liz and michelle become friends.]
c-c lady #2: me too!
me: well, actually i live in smyrna. [smyrna is a suburb, while vinings is a part of the city of atlanta...vinings is the cool place to live, and everyone in smyrna says they live in vinings.]
c-c lady #2: ME TOO!
[we then realize that we live literally 2 miles apart from one another.]
c-c lady #1: where do you teach?
me: [name of school]
c-c lady #2: my two children go there!

it was a SMALL WORLD MOMENT, PEOPLE.

c-c lady #1 insisted that we take a photo with michelle, even though i was like "we don't want to bug her any more than we already are!"  c-c lady also forced "shelly" into the middle.  it was awesome.

good. day.

weather report

frowny face.

best quotation ever

from this opinion piece:

When I was a teenager, newly fixated on becoming a writer, I came across a piece of advice from Kurt Vonnegut that affected me like an ice cube down the back of my shirt. “Do not use semicolons,” he said. “They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”


(i happen to love semicolons, but i do kind of use them just because i can...)

yesterday a girl on the program dislocated her shoulder and then, walking to the office, clumsily ran into a wall, popping it back in.  we are considering this a victory.

in her pain, we sent a PA (program assistant - they are oxford undergrads) to the pharmacy to get the strongest possible painkillers that they sell over the counter.  the girl said that her mom lets her take ibuprofen (having a mom myself who is particular about what kind of painkillers we're allowed to have - no aspirin for us as kids - i asked her what her mom would want her to take when we weren't able to get her mom on the phone).  our PA came back with a box of ibuprofen WITH CODEINE.  they sell this over the counter for 3 pounds (5 dollars).  omg.  england.  what is going on.

we did not give it to her, as i was again channeling my mom and knew she wouldn't want her child given codeine without having been consulted, so it was regular ibuprofen for this kid.  

when i got back to my room last night i checked out the receipt, which i provide for your entertainment.

be warned, everyone - this contains ibuprofen!  we'll omit the warning about the CODEINE that you could become addicted to.

oh england.  i giggled a lot.

i registered for classes at teachers college!!

this fall i am going to be taking:

curriculum and cognitive development
leadership of private schools
ethics and education
intro to research methods (eeeeeeeek)
law and educational institutions
and i'll be doing a "field project" at a new york city school.

i didn't have any choice in the coursework - the program lays out the course of study with the exception of one elective in the spring semester.  this was actually a perk for me, and one of the reasons i selected this particular program.  they know what makes good private school leaders, and i am happy to go along with that and learn all those things they want me to learn.  registering for courses was really just the formality of going onto the registration website and putting in the course numbers that they provided me.

so registration was a breeze, but seeing the schedule makes it OFFICIAL that i'll be in new york and attending class in less than 2 months.  i. am. so. excited.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
--Eleanor Roosevelt

june: 16, 17, & 18

oh glorious summer - you allow me to read lots of books!  all women authors this month...


maisie dobbs, by jacqueline winspear (the first book in a series of mystery novels about a female detective in 1920s england.  a fine book, but not one that i was rushing home to read every night, and i don't think i'll be reading any of the other books in the series.  it was...slow, i guess...and the mystery wasn't that mysterious.)

gilead, by marilynne robinson (i. loved. this. book.  my uncle mark recommended it to me, so he gets a shout out for the great recommendation.  the book is one long letter, written by a man [who thinks he is dying] to his son.  it's a story of their family's history, but also advice he thinks he won't be around to give his son as he grows up.  so you learn this world through the little stories of their lives.  at some point in the book the narrator debates the question of whether human beings have capacity for change, or whether one is born good or evil...he is struggling with this, so you struggle with this.  it's beautiful prose...so clean...very easy to read, but a lot going on - very thoughtful.  the narrator is a minister, and if i knew more about the bible i think i would have enjoyed it even more, as there are a lot of biblical references.  this book won a pulitzer prize, which sometimes scares me; i think books like that will be too intellectual for me.  this was very accessible, and lovely.  it's not action packed, but it's definitely worth reading.)

room, by emma donoghue (the premise: the narrator is a 5 year old boy named jack who lives with his mother in "room" - the padlocked shack where his mother's kidnapper put her, where she gave birth to jack, and where he has never left.  um, omg.  i had put off reading this book because it just sounded CREEPY...and then i started it and got so into it that i finished it in 24 hours.  it didn't hurt that many of those hours were on an international flight and in between naps afterward, but i did really enjoy it, and hearing the story through the eyes of a child makes it much less upsetting than if it were narrated by his mother who understands how horrific the situation is.  a really interesting book - i'd recommend it!)

pizza van

pizza van, you were so freaking delicious last night, but perhaps you are to blame for my stomach hurting today.  we may need to break up for a bit.

but not forever - don't worry.  i'll forget about this soon enough.

arrivals day!  450 students arrived today - it's what we've been building up to for the past week.  aaaaand i felt horrible all day - i think i ate something that didn't agree with me.  UGHHHHHH - this was absolutely not the day to feel under the weather.  my coworkers kindly let me sit in the office all day, answering the phone and dealing with emails instead of checking the students in and running around the college taking kids to their rooms.  i'm not out of commission, just moving a little more slowly than normal and dealing with occasional bad stomach pain.  i very rarely have stomach issues - i really can't remember the last time i felt like this.

total food consumed today: 5 crackers and 1 small bowl of miso soup.  literally.  i also drank about 10 glasses of water, so at least i'm staying hydrated...

i was supposed to work until 11pm tonight, but when things calmed down a couple minutes ago my coworkers sent me to lie down.  i'm not tired, i just feel a million times better when sitting down or lying down.

fingers crossed i feel better tomorrow!