Homework Distractions

I have so much f'ing work to do. No, seriously, I do. I just looked at my list. I have to read Grapes of Wrath by tomorrow. Just, fucking, reading the whole damn thing like it's no big shake and instead, I'm watching The Ruins on HBO for the ONE BILLIONTH TIME.

Oh, haven't you seen The Ruins? The movie about four unsuspecting college kids traveling in South America when they happenstancingly wander onto some sort of Mayan Temple/Raiders of the Lost Ark/Goblet of Fire bullshit and are forced to stay because OH HOLY MOTHER OF THE LORD THEY TOUCHED THE PLANTS. The guards around the temple with their arrows lose their shit immediately and get all "Shoot her on my mark, she looks like she has a grass stain on her knee... we can't have none of that round here."

That's right, the bad guy in this film feeds off of: photosynthesis and your brain.
And, I mean, really the whole thing is just so ludicrous but I just keep watching in horror as one by one they get picked off by the vines that creep into your flesh in the middle of the night when NO ONE SHOULD BE SLEEPING ANYWAY but of course they all are. Truly, the film ends with more blood and gore than a Jason flick. I can't tear myself away. It's just that terribly, horribly, frightfully, awfully good.


(From left to right)
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THE PLANTS! They don't call it POISON IVY because Drew Barrymore was just THAT HOT in the movie!"

"I didn't mean to, it was an ACCIDENT. I don't know why you're so upset...I'm the blonde one, clearly I'm going to die first."

"Why am I washing her cuts while it's raining?"

"Ok, I know you said they were bad...but what about this one? Is this the type of weed I can smoke?....still no?...ok, I'll keep looking."

How the Harmonica Saved Me

My terrible day? INSTANTLY BETTER. Behold:



You can thank me later.
Or you can check her out here.

Getting fired from a job that doesn't pay me anyway

This year the high school I'm interning at made it to State Finals for Volleyball. I won't say which division or class, only that we went and it was great. Fans came from all over and for a girl who doesn't understand what it means when someone screams "Touchdown!" at any other sporting event, I feel like I held my own at this one. I got it. Don't let the ball go outside the square. Don't hit other players on purpose. You need to be tall to play. That kind of stuff.

No, the real error of my ways was going with the family I live with as the mother coaches the team and the father's sole purpose when sitting on the sidelines is to make crass comments and jump around nervously the entire time they're playing.

So, I'm sitting with the family and their family friends and all the kids and out of nowhere this guy dressed like a horse shows up as one of the mascots and the two year old that is sitting with us just FREAKS THE F OUT. Like, "Holy crap have you ever seen anything scarier than a man dressed like a horse? Wearing a JERSEY? IS HE WAVING AT US?!?! AND DAAAANNNNCCCCIIINNNNGGG HEAVEN HELP US NOOOOOOOOOO" and immediately is scrambling her way from adult to adult to get as far as possible from said horrific mascot five thousand feet away across this giant ass gym dancing with some old woman to "Eye of the Tiger" playing loudly overhead. We must vacate the premises.

So I volunteer to take her and I walk with her a few seats away. We bounce. We dance. She asks me repeatedly "when will he come over here, why does he like little kids, can't you make him LEAVE?!" (I wish I were exaggerating) and lo and behold some of my students from school sit right behind me while I'm in the middle of consoling. Not coincidentally. No, no. They've been stalking me. We'll go into that more later. What's important right now is that they sought me out so they could wave stupidly at me while I dance to Miley Cyrus with a toddler and they can giggle like kindergartners.

BUT THAT'S NOT EVEN THE WORST PART. The WORST PART is that the father of the family I live with see's this all go down and because he's CAPTAIN FUNNY PANTS looks right at the kids, smiles widely and says to them, "Didn't you hear? Ms. E has a kid. She got knocked up in high school."

Time stopped. It was like I saw the idea form in his head above his hair...like in a tiny "evil breeds here" bubble but could do nothing about it. His definition of funny is so DIFFERENT FROM MY DEFINITION and I just couldn't get the words out fast enough. I couldn't prevent it, it just happened he said it and suddenly I was SO ROYALLY FUCKED because doesn't he know that nothing...absolutely nothing in the world of 16 year old boy is a joke?!?!

If looks could kill that man would be 'fillet of asshole' on the planet Mars right now but as it is, looks cannot kill. I stopped midbounce, the toddler continues to writhe hysterically because if we're not dancing that must mean I've noticed the mascot on it's way to EAT US ALIVE and all of these teenage boys are laughingly hysterically at this shared information.

AND THEN I can't even do anything about it! My options are so limited! I COULD deny, deny, deny because HELLO IT'S NOT TRUE but they are just laughing so hard and I could rip the head off the perpetrator but God what a scene that would cause and you can only imagine how much the small child would lose her mind because she's sure fresh carnage attracts even more mascots from around the world, much like in every zombie movie where one signal can send them all rioting. So what do I do?

Nothing. I smile, shake my head, call my frenemy an 'evil fucker' under my breath the entire rest of the game and finally have a one on one conversation with the damned horse wearing mascot to vacate our immediate vicinity.
Today I was asked twice today to tell my daughter my students said 'Hi'. I'm so fucked. So completely fucked. So much so that I've "f-bombed" six times in this posting.

Three weeks left? I'll never survive. Never.
To top it all off? We lost the match.

Touchdown.

I carry your hearts with me

I'm busy. You're getting all "um, did you forget you have a blog?" and I'm like, "Dude, seriously, I just graded 58 papers on The Great Depression, I'm BUSY."

So I'm back for a moment and really the reason makes me almost ashamed. I was perusing ModCloth.com and they have this blogtastic contest going on right now for Thanksgiving where if you mention them and the people you're most thankful for in your life, you win some gift cards and I was like "I freakin' LOVE free stuff" but then I wanted to stick my whole, giant size nine "We call you Big Bird behind your back" foot in my mouth because, HELLO, giving thanks shouldn't be about getting. It should simply be about giving.

So here goes. I'm most thankful for my girls. I mean, yes, I love my family and my other friends and all the little blessings in my life but if someone were to pull me off the streets and ask me what helps me through the day, right AFTER I said "grilled cheese sandwiches" it would totally be my girls.

I love Beth and Kelley with a love that should be illegal. I honestly don't think I could survive without you. And I mean that because it wouldn't be surviving if you weren't around. It wouldn't even be living. It would be force fed, constantly state of monotonous couch sitting that people would come from miles around to see as I accumulate cobwebs in my ears that my mother was swabbing out when she remembered I was still sitting there. It would mean a machine that chewed for me. No more hair combing EVA. It would be "I'll never have another grilled cheese in my life again if I can just have them back" type of prayer around the clock.

You help me breathe. You help me succeed. You help me believe. You make my life better. Scratch that. You are my life.

I'm thankful for your souls.

And I'm totally taking you shopping if I win this Modcloth business.

Joy to the World

I was digging through my mom's mail the other day and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Frankly, my mail is boring. Yesterday I literally received a map of the U.S. in an envelope asking me to donate to some sort of wildlife fund and I was so excited about getting free stuff, I almost wet myself AND gave my entire life savings to the Polar Bears. I mean, this was even better than the time I got free baby formula in the mail and that was an INTERESTING day...both in the "Gifts I didn't expect to receive" and "How do I explain something like this to my mother?" categories.

Moving on. Whilst digging through her mail I realized that the madness that is Christmas Card exchanging has already begun. AND THAT reminded me of last year and how she pre-ordered hand selected cards with which she did not have to sign because our names were stamped on the inside.

I'm sorry, did I say OUR names? I meant to say, the names of my backstabbing rat faced family that did NOT put me on it. Apparently being 25 and still living at your parent's house isn't socially degrading enough...now I've been eliminated on the Christmas Card and have been replaced by our three labs (and if the hamster hadn't died so untimely, that bitch would have made it on there as well I guarantee you).

SO I've decided, fine. Be that way. I will make my OWN Christmas card this year and it will be so stinking fantastic you'll be jealous I didn't include YOU on the inside, let alone on my mailing list. Would you like a Christmas card from me? Let me know. I deny no one the gift of blessings during this glorious holiday season.

Fa-la-la-la-la-fa-fucking-la.....laaaaaaaaa.

Math can suck it

Turns out I might not have eighty posts. I don't know how this happened, I'm assuming blogger hates math as much as I do and one of us is wrong in our addition. Regardless, by now I'm sure many of you have sent me many "Happy Eighty Posts" day gifts and I just want you to know DO NOT FRET. I will still accept them, accurate counting or not.

Phew, huh? Sweet relief, I feel better too.

Numero Eighty-o

Eighty posts. That's obscene. Let's celebrate!

Today I started teaching the ninth graders a new book, one of which required that we take a look at the last 100 years of life. You know, a little fun history exercise and holy crap did they love exploring the U.S.'s past. I gave them the floor and suddenly found myself covered in dry erase marker smudges while running from one end of the board (1890) to the other (1995), trying to keep up with their frantic screaming of whats important enough to belong.
"Titanic! The first Wright Brother's Flight! World War I but please don't ask me what year that was I just know there was one! OH AND ABBA!"

And seriously, if you just let ninth graders take over they totally will. I had kids volunteering to carry my shit and wipe down the board and collect my quizzes and their participation was just through the freaking roof. It was seriously the MOST fun day I've ever had teaching and as the bell rang and they filed out, wishing "Mrs. E" a great day, my mentor teacher came up to me and smiling, said, "That looked like you had a lot of fun."

WITHOUT EVEN THINKING (because hello, it's me) I shout back at her in a fit of uncontrolled bliss, "Dude, it TOTALLY was!"

She blinked for several seconds, much like if I had spit in her cornea and she wasn't sure how to react next and it was in those few seconds that any shred of respect she had gained for me in that class session had disappeared in the professional world when I called her 'dude'. Nonetheless she shook it off, regained her composure and muttered, "Yes, well...I suppose that's good."

And I don't even care. I'm so freaking high off such a great class. I had kids coming UP TO ME. They were all "Hey, Mrs. E I read that book you were talking about and do you think I left my sweater here yesterday and I heard you told my best friend I put his name on all my vocab cards" and it was just such a connecting kind of day. You know? When students look at you and no longer see the weirdo who wears pencils in her hair and considers that 'business appropriate'? I'm no longer lame! Scratch that...I'm probably still just as much of a loser in their eyes today that I was yesterday. But today, I felt like their teacher. Their fun, 'Hey I might not hate English' teacher. And it's great. I'm pretty sure it's exactly how Obama felt four weeks into staying at the White House when he was suddenly all, "Holy crap...I'M the PRESIDENT". You know he had that moment. He had to. Today was mine. Today was my Obama moment.

Excuse me, I have to go now. I'm very busy and important being a teacher. Plus, I just downloaded all kinds of Abba.