Sunshine Meets Rain Half Way to Hearing Aids

Although his profile picture appears somewhat creepy, I really wish I was friends with Ben.

see more funny facebook stuff!

Movies watched in 2009:

Twilight
*Clueless
The Wrestler
Bolt
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
He’s Just Not That Into You
Slumdog Millionaire
Vicky Christina Barcelona
The Secret Life of Bees
American Teen
The Watchmen
Ghost Town
*Twilight
Wet Hot American Summer
*The Emperor’s New Groove
El Mariachi
Desperado
Star Trek
*Bridget Jones’ Diary
Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist
Jesus Camp
*Can’t Hardly Wait
*Bye Bye Love
Made of Honor
Up
Role Models
Objectified
The Hangover
500 Days of Summer
Bruno
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Seven Pounds
Step Up 2: The Streets
Funny People
16 Again
Coraline
Animal House
Zombieland
*WALL-E
Iron Giant
Rachel Getting Married
New Moon
*New Moon
GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra
*Four Christmases
Angels & Demons
Land of the Lost
Julie & Julia
The History Boys
*10 Things I Hate About You
*The Hangover
Confessions of a Shopaholic
It’s Complicated
Avatar
*The Hangover

*watched previously

Books read in 2009*:
(yes, I realize that these are mostly YA fiction but that’s how I roll)
New Moon – Stephanie Meyer
Eclipse – Stephanie Meyer
Breaking Dawn – Stephanie Meyer
Midnight Sun – Stephanie Meyer (only partial book written)
The Disuniting of America: Reflection on a Multicultural Society – Arthur Schlesinger
The Complete Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
Other People’s Children – Lisa Delpit
The View from Saturday – E.L. Konigsburg
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – E.L. Konisburg
Brain Rules – John Medina
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters – Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Titan’s Curse – Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth – Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian – Rick Riordan
The Lost Symbol – Dan Brown
The Mysterious Benedict Society – Trenton Lee Stewart
3 Willows – Ann Brashares

*list does not include textbooks read

Places traveled in 2009:
*Pensacola (Milton), FL
*Portland, OR
Las Vegas, NV
Austin, TX
Port Ludlow, WA
*Miami, FL
Cancun, Mexico
San Francisco, CA

*places visited on more than one occasion

Up next: 2009 in pictures

I have this sort of fascination with all things weather. I think in another life I was a meteorologist. So it is no surprise that I visit weather.com at least once a day. When there is a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic the number rises to around 4.

Today I was performing my usual check and saw that it was 29 in Seattle.29 is about 10 degrees too cold for me so I stated check other places, namely the cities where my family lives to see if I could live vicariously through their warmth. Seattle is the coldest (aside from Minot, ND where it is just ridiculous and tied with Portland). So while my sister is basking in the 37 degree Bronx weather, I’m wondering how many coats is too many coats to wear at one time.

I also discovered that our two holiday destination cities are quite warm:
Miami – 78
Pensacola – 64

Merry Christmas, indeed! Both of these are acceptable temperatures that allow for flip flops and a cardigan!

Addendum:
I’ve decided that no amount of coats is too many coats.
My sister is probably not basking at all. She’s probably laying on the couch watching TV feeling  high on Vicodin after having her kidney de-stoned.

This quarter hasn’t been any different from any other, but I am exhausted and ready to finished like never before. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps it’s the switch from abstract to practical is the reason or that I expected so much more from this quarter and was sort of let down. All I know is that only a few assignment stand in the way of me and freedom. Now I just need to convince myself to actually work.

Here is what I need to accomplish before I can bask in freedom for three whole weeks.
1 Unit Plan
1 Discussion board reflection
1 Juxtaposition paper
1 EDTC metareflection
1 EDTC 5-minute instructional screen cast with accompanying handout

I’ve nearly completed the juxtaposition paper due on Tuesday. I just need to reread and revise. The unit plan due Monday is another issue entirely. I cannot seem to motivate myself to do this and am starting to feel the stress. I feel very ill-prepared to do something like this and if I’m not good at something I simply don’t want to do it.

I will be making a big push to get the EDTC assignment done this weekend (or more realistically on Wednesday) though they aren’t due until the 13th. If I wait that long, my 3 weeks will be cut down to two and that is not ideal.

And now that I’ve bored you all with the details of my school life, I will find some other way to procrastinate.

“All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous, for they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible.” – T.E. Lawrence

Every year SPU cancels class for a day so that faculty, staff and students can come together to learn about a certain topic. They call this day the Day of Common Learning and it consists of a keynote speaker in the morning and then seminars in the afternoon.

This year’s topic was Abraham Lincoln so naturally I was excited. Excited to learn about Abe, but maybe a little more excited to enter in the $300 bookstore gift certificate raffle. Last year I was unaware of this raffle, but won!  You can read about my excitement here. Being one of maybe three graduate students who attend the DoCL I knew my chances of victory were high again this year. So I went to the seminars, entered my name into the drawing, and waited. Monday afternoon at 12:12pm I received this e-mail:

Congratulations, Nicole!

You won! Your name was drawn in the Day of Common Learning raffle. As a winner, you will receive $300 to be used at the SPU bookstore for textbook purchases. Please contact Elizabeth Reed, manager of the bookstore, with any questions you might have regarding your gift card.

Please reply to this e-mail or call 281-2481 to verify receipt of this winner notification.

Thank you for participating in the Day of Common Learning!
-Stacey

You cannot imagine my excitement. I did a few pump fists and then proceeded to tell everyone in my office that I won two years in a row. This was indeed a special day….

That is until 2:18pm rolled around and I received this follow up e-mail:

Hi Nicole,

It has come to my attention that you are a full time employee.  I am very sorry, but you are ineligible for the gift certificate as a .8 employee.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

My apologies for the confusion,
Stacey

I then got a follow-up phone call from Stacy to make sure I read the e-mail and that I understood everything. I said I did, but that was a lie.

Start rant

I don’t understand why full-time employees who are also full-time students are not eligible. I pay more you in tuition (even with my 10% discount) in two quarters than you pay me in a whole year. Also, you raised my tuition this year, but did not raise my (or any staff member’s) pay this year. As a university you are making the claim that my employment trumps my education (a stretch I know, but go with it because I’m ranting). Isn’t this the exact opposite of what a university should strive for? Stacy, I know this policy isn’t your decision, but do some fact checking before you send out a congratulations e-mail okay?

End rant.

End post.

My friend Sara and I e-mail pretty regularly while at work. Our e-mails are fairly short, but cover a wide topic of things from school and work to clowns.  This morning conversation revolved around this and this.

Yesterday our conversation morphed into a discussion on adorable, preppy children. This led me to the Crewcuts website. In case you don’t know, Crewcuts is J. Crew’s children’s line and it’s fantastic.  I am not going to admit how much time I spent looking at the website, as it’s an embarrassing amount. Let’s just say that I might be on a child molester watch group’s list now. Not only are those kids so freaking adorable, but they also have good fashion sense. I mean let’s be honest, those kids are my kind of dressers.

During my perusals, I came across the cutest outfit and am not ashamed to say that today I stole an outfit idea from a six year old. I’m talking down to the fake peals I have on around my neck. And after I finish typing this post, I will probably go back to the site and look for tomorrow’s outfit.

Josué and I moved a month ago (which will be a different post) and because of this move, Connie no longer has a warm, covered, safe place to sleep. She now sleeps outside exposed to all the elements which has been quite an adjustment for me. I’m not used to dew on my window in the morning and am definitely not a fan. However, it’s something that I can and will get used to.

What I will not get used to is random acts of tagging.

Saturday morning Josué and I were leaving our apartment when I noticed something weird on the back on friend Danielle’s car. At first I thought she wrote something on her car with that window paint and wondered why she wrote on her car and not the window. I tried to rub it off and realized it wasn’t budging. I smelled my hand and realized it was spray paint and experienced this train of thought: someone spray painted Danielle’s car! What? Why? Oh my God, what if they spray painted my car? I looked over and sure enough FATS had marked his/her territory right on the shiny silver paint of my beloved car.

With the help of Goo Gone we luckily got all the spray paint off both cars and Connie looks beautiful again. I’m just seriously wondering why people would tag a car and why someone would voluntarily choose the nickname Fats.

The 2nd year of my masters program started this week. And even though I’ve been doing this grad school thing a year, I was still nervous as ever to start the quarter. The beginning of the 2nd year marks a shift in the program. The first year we just talked about teaching, we didn’t really do anything practical. This year we’re all practical all the time. We’re making lesson plans, practicing strategies, teaching our classmates and in March we enter the classroom.

I cannot even begin to describe how horrified I am of this. March? The month that is 5 months away from now? That March?

I learned in class Monday that teachers, as a profession, have the highest rate of UTIs because they can’t go to the bathroom during the day. We were asked in class on Monday what we were most afraid of about teaching. I could have rambled on for hours about my fears of becoming a teacher, but now, on top of my learning gaps, crazy policies, my insecurities about myself as a teacher, and being mistaken for a middle schooler, I have to worry about UTIs? Does God not know that I get grumpy when I have to pee and can’t go?

And here’s the kicker: I can’t drink cranberry juice as a preventative measure because then I’ll just have to pee

And we’re back!

I am not a very good blogger, obviously. My last entry way July 6th and while I think I have some great excuses for not blogging (taking four classes, going on a long vacation, having dear friends move across the country, moving myself to a new apartment), they aren’t really excuses at all. And I know this. I want to be a blogger though.

I read a survey by someone that said people blog because they are narcissists. And while I don’t really care what this person thinks of me as we have no real contact outside of FB (and really not even there), after I read that I was afraid or adverse to blogging. Myself, I still loved other people’s and was mad when they didn’t update three times a day. But I don’t care if blogging makes me narcissist (which I don’t wholly agree with in the first place) because it’s also a medium where friends and family can read about my life.

So about two weeks ago Josué told me my domain was going to run out and asked if I wanted to renew it. After being convinced by Josué, I conflictedly (is that a word?) agreed to just like the domain run out. After all, I hadn’t blogged or even attempted a post in over 2 months and that $.75 a month my blog cost could buy me something pretty.

It took a whole three days for me to look Josué in the eyes, put on my cutest “I want something” face and ask for him to get my domain back. This was followed by much laughter on his part and defensiveness on mine. But in the end, my face won him over and I’m back online.

Note: this post should not be confused with the “So, I haven’t blogged in awhile, but I’m going to be better at it, I promise” posts that people post and then break their promises. If you’ve read carefully, you’ll see that no such promise has been made. I could very well go another 2 months without posting anything. But isn’t the suspense worth it?