oh geez

Scraped my knees up PRETTY BAD when I fell on my face after tripping over a cord in my classroom while teaching this morning.

Is it fair for me to use this as an example to show my students what I expect?

I could cry I love her section on feminism so much (It starts around 15:00 but everything before it is awesome, so skipping ahead is probably not a good idea):

"But um, it's not the age of women unless it can be the age of girls, too."

Worst moderator ever.

okayyyyy

"please god don't let someone come outside right now." "please god let someone!"

Last night as Jess and I were about to get out of the car after dinner, Delilah played The Pretenders' "I'll Stand By You." So we didn't get out of the car. She turned off the engine and the lights and turned up the volume and we sat there in the dark behind our apartment building singing.

It reminded me of a time about twelve or so years ago when I was coming home from somewhere with my Dad. It was nighttime that time, too, and we pulled into the garage just as Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" came on the radio. We did then exactly what Jess and I did last night.

Weird parallel memories. Not afraid to admit to liking both of those songs.

(This video is ridiculous, by the way. Ridiculous but awesome.)

lovely views

Since I'd borrowed Mom and Dad's car for a couple of days this week, I used it to take Eoin and Finola up to Chicago for a visit yesterday.


And took the train back to C-U this morning.

I made this!

Yeah, it's a Scottie dog bookmark. I started making them in grammar school when I got this book. I musta made dozens of these Scottie dog bookmarks.

Okay, I need to go back to work. Seriously soon. Obviously, I'm losing it. (I drew that Scottie dog free hand!) I'm also learning that Jessica could really be a professional bookmark model, no?

Here's an update on that sweet potato.

Remember when Jess and I got a sweet potato but then never ate it. I'm sure you all remember. (That "you all" thing is a joke. The only person reading this is Jessica because I told her I was going to post this.) Well, it was about two years ago, give or take a few weeks. Here's what it looks like now:


I happen to think that, in its antique form, it's sort of an edgy addition to the decor of our lovely little home.

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On my absence from this blog: Yeah, I just don't really have that much to say. But I'm going to make an effort to write up in here again because I realized just now while perusing old posts with Jess, that if it wasn't for this ol' thing, I wouldn't remember about the time when Jordan rested his hand on the waiter's stomach. Also, it hosts our intern want ad. (We're still hiring! Apply now!) So for posterity's sake.

(The problem is, I'm not completely convinced that it's necessary for anyone to blog anymore since Tavi already blogs, and she does so in such a completely perfect way.)

FYI

For the second time this week, tonight we gathered the ingredients for making a delicious soup and got half way through the making process before deciding to go out to El Toro instead. The call of chips and salsa, beans, guac, and sour cream is just that compelling.

Yay-uhhh.

when people stop being polite, and start getting real

In a conversation about what kinds of hobbies we could take up in an effort to make our lives less boring, Jess said this:

"I'm just trying to pass some goddamn time before I fucking die."

big plans

Sydney and I went on a school-supply quest this morning. We need all these things for our students to learn to write. Except for the pretzels. The pretzels are for eating.



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"Oh! We could use one of those big containers like the ones they sell cheesy poofs in!"
"Yes!"
"That's a lot of cheesy poofs. Do you eat cheesy poofs? I do not eat cheesy poofs."
"I eat cheesy poofs."

Eoin's birthday present

I just licked my plate clean.

In the past eight days, Jessica and I have had this recipe four nights. I cannot stress enough how delicious it is.

ingredients:
3 pints of grape tomatoes
6 shallots, quartered
1 tbl spoon of olive oil
1/2 cup of dry white wine
2 tbl spoons of capers

makin it:
Sautee the shallots in the olive oil for a little while until they get soft and, you know, cooked. Then add the tomatoes. Leave them for a few minutes until two-ish of them burst because of the heat. Then, add the white wine, and wait for it to evaporate. Stir in the capers.



So. Good.

insight

I received the following playlist from one of my students as part of our totally optional not an assignment class mix CD exchange.

1. "Get Me Bodied" - Beyonce
2. "Flaws and All" - Beyonce
3. "Upgrade" - Beyonce
4. "I'm So In Love" - Beyonce
5. "Vans" - The Pack
6. "Dumb Diddy" - The Pack
7. "Go Stupid" - The Pack
8. "I'm Shining" - The Pack
9. "Promise" - Ciara
10. "Rain On Me" - Ashanti
11. "So Much In Love" - The Tymes
12. "Water Runs Dry" - Boyz II Men
13. a K-Ci & JoJo song the name of which she did not list
14. "Almost" - Timia
15. "Never Had a Friend" - the artist of which is unlisted
16. "Suffocated Like You" - J-Holiday
17. "Love You More Everyday" - Ginuwine
18. "You've Go That Love" - don't know the artist

something I like

is when people say "correct" to mean "cool." Or "good."

good taste

So I finally did my grading today. Ugh. So boring. But one interesting thing I noticed was that a significant majority of the students who chose to write about the Tupac Shakur text we read ("Keep Ya Head Up") focused their analysis on the same set of lines:

And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women do we hate our women
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies who make the babies
And since a man can't make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one

These happen to be my favorite lines from the song as well, but our class discussions really didn't go in their direction at all. Or at least not more that they did towards other parts of the song. Maybe it's because discourse on the need to respect women is sort of a common and comfortable thing in terms of what-we-write-for-school. Don't know. It could be the repeated long "a" sound followed by the repeated "woman/en" that drew them all in. That's what does it for me anyway.