Second Day as a Sub

I went to sleep a little earlier than the night before, hoping to catch up on some much needed sleep and to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the fourth graders! I was probably out by 2:00am. Boo. But I woke up at 5:00am, after reciting my bedtime prayers: please let me wake up on time, please let me wake up on time, please let me wake up on time! It totally works. My prayers were answered and I was out of the condo by 6:30am. So dark! I made it to that new school over in Ft Worth by 7:30am. It is really nice!! So fancy in it's newness, I was delighted. This school was welcoming, but I did not get a map like at the other school, so I was lost several times. The fourth graders were awesome. Some people may think that the word awesome is over used, but it is not! The kids were awesome. The teachers must be amazing, because I didn't have a problem with any of them. Some tried my patience and were not ideal, but what kid doesn't have its moments? Exactly. Everyone was so nice and I even saw two kids from camp! It was fun to talk to them. They remembered how much their counselor snored. Heh! I got to go outside for recess and I was finished by 3:15pm. Such a good day ... I hope every day can be as fun as that one.

And now Friday evening.
Drive back to Dallas, check.
Change into pajamas, check.
Watch a lot of unnecessary television, check.
Fall asleep with Jerry Springer on, without brushing teeth or washing face, check.
Lovely.

First Day as a Substitute Teacher

Technically, my first day as a career substitute was Wednesday, but I couldn't find any jobs online and I forgot to tell the office that my number was long distance, so I didn't get a call to sub on Wednesday. That's okay, I had stuff to do anyways... I was freaking out so I spent all day Wednesday afternoon checking the job availability. Every five minutes. Then, I saw it. A job opening! But someone else was looking at it. What did that mean? What was going on? What a world, what a world. As a certified teacher, I am at the top of the list to get a substitute job. Why could I not sign up for this gig? Then I heard my phone ring! It was the subfinder, calling about that very job I had been gunning for, for the last 35 minutes. Victory was mine. I had a job lined up for the next day, I would be making money!!!! A positive cash flow at last.

Then I spent the rest of the evening preparing for my first day in a classroom all by my self in a looooong time. I looked at the school website, the district handouts, my age appropriate books...I would be in a first grade class, yikes, and would need to be prepared for the worst. I spent from 9:30pm to 2:30am thinking, I have to go to sleep. I have to wake up at 5:30am. I have to go to sleep. I have to wake up at 5:30am. It was a long night. But I did wake up at 5:30am. And I was early for work. The secretary hadn't even shown up yet. And the worst did not happen. The teacher was prepared, the kids knew what was up, I made one child cry and another got in big trouble for cussing at the teacher next door. Other than that, it was fine.

I went to Lynn's after work and started working on the invitations that she is paying me to address. I did a lot of prep work, hoping that I would not disappoint her. We will find out. Going to Jacque's later for Girls' Night!!!

Repressed

Okay, so we've been talking about repression in class recently. Today's interesting topic of the day will be ... "Dissociative Identity Disorder". Previously and more commonly referred to as multiple personality disorder, there are extreme cases, discussed in the book When Rabbit Howls, where a person changes cognition, facial features, voice, and eye color. That is freaking cool! When you change to a different personality in your fractured brain, your eye color can change? Not like "The Craft" change your eye color, but of your own mental powers. I know what you're thinking. This just proves the theory presented by M. Night in "Unbreakable". That comic books are based on people or ideas in the real world. When the good character turns evil, their eyes can change from a normal color to red or black or some version of crazy lighting if you saw those episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Willow goes all dark magic. This could have been based on a real person who changed their eye color when they changed identity. Okay, maybe some of you weren't thinking that, but that's the first thing I thought of. My professor went so far as to sight his ex-wife ... I'll let that sit for a minute ... as a person who could do this. Her eyes would change from blue to green, her voice would change, and the muscles in her face changed, so she looked different. Ooo, sort of like "The Mask". And anything can trigger this change, a feeling, an object, a look, a person. Sadly, his wife's other personality really didn't like him, which probably explains why they are divorced. Could there be relevant percentage of fictional characters with "superpowers" based on real people with mental, emotional, and physical disorders? I wonder...

Mmmonday

For some reason I could not wake up today. Had to be in class by 9:00am. I managed to wake up at 8:10am, good thing my new shampoo makes my hair look less greasy on day two. Woot for less strict hygiene habits. Hopped in the shower and was in class on time. I have put my foot down and refused to sit next to the two talking hyenas on the front row. Now I sit behind them and glare!! Grrr... I am still a little bitter about girl number 2 calling the Band racist in class on Friday. Seriously, you can't be pulling that stuff before I have my coffee. Hopefully I will be over it by Wednesday, otherwise, I might have to move seats again.

At work I tried to come up with a fantastic two fold brochure detailing the fabulousness of my boss and his company, it wasn't so easy. Not that he isn't fabulous in a real estate broker sort of way, but I needed some serious template help and he had to write verbage. Not to mention I need to get out and about in Dallas and take some pictures so that I can actually use photos that wouldn't involve copyright infringement. Don't wanna get sued!

Driving home I realized that staring at the computer screen for 4 1/2 hours is making me go blind. So as soon as I got home and sat and stared at Sean's computer screen for ... going on 2 hours now. Was checking out Style.com for fashion tips ... still searching for perfect outfit for Kristen's rehearsal dinner. Seriously it takes me months to plan an outfit that is halfway presentable. And even then, it doesn't always work out. Side Bar: I spent all of December thinking about a New Year's outfit and my friends showed up in jeans and I looked like ... I don't even know who I looked like. I had "thank you for the country music award" curly hair because I got bored that day and I had my favorite rhinestone tie. Have resolved to wear that more. I only end up wearing it to Pete's for some reason. After looking at slide shows on Style I became focused on Peter Sarsgaard, because he is dating Maggie Gyllenhaal and she knows how to wear all the right things at the parties, thank you very much. Question: Interesting or stupid and boring that they both have double-aa in their last names? You be the judge. After I IMDB-ed him I found a link to the most amusing website. Seriously, go to it. It looks like a normal, crazy, fan website, but read the copy - it's NOT!! Especially the FAQs. Hahahaha! I'm going to go read them again now.

I have definitely started drinking coffee again, results be damned, because I am not a quitter!

And now, I will leave you with a quote from the P-Gaard Hub News page:

Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Is there any way to say we are sorry? Or have you lost all faith you once had in your beloved web mistresses? We worry the bonds that once united us, like our common love for Peter, Liz, and Jill, has now been reduced to a common love for Peter and the mere shadow of love lost. This isn't to say we have been idle! We have watched rouge, vacuous sites uncoil from the dark corners of Peter fan-dom. We correctly assumed that they would soon feed on themselves. With their disturbing overuse of the exclamation mark and emoticons and an all too troubling obsession with the corpus of Peter, we understood that the time had come for us to return.

That, and we were invited to review Jarhead by Universal. Review and contest coming soon! Who's the corporate tool now???

Mmm...weekends.

I love the Sunday. There is nothing like Beverly Hills Cop and greasy Chinese food. Mmm... Yesterday was more productive than any day in the last week. I slept a really freaking long time, started laundry, and took a shower with a candle that smells like soap. Why? Why would I use the candle that smells like soap? I haven't used it in the last year....but I needed it because the water in University Park still smelled a little bit like moldy @$$. Such as life. Went over to Jacque's ... Mike and I watched "Scream 3" (my choice) while Jacque and Austen grilled chicken and corn. Oh and Jacque made rice. Mmm...rice. There really is nothing better than rice. I would like to know what the deal is with gummy worms. I don't get the appeal. Whatever...we went to the Cowboys/Texans game. Not really interesting until near the end where the Cowboys were winning 14 to 3 and half of the stadium had started to empty out when the Texans came back and ran an incredible amount of yards to a touchdown. Woot. Not that I'm a Texans fan. But then in the last quarter Cowboys made another touchdown, so they won 21 to 9. But oh, so many mistakes...it's going to be a long season. Good luck Cowboys. I have decided to re-embrace the title of this blog, "So I have to journal..." The children have started writing essays...so I will now begin updating every day. Okay, you know I'm lying. But I will try harder to update more.

Okay, so we get back after the game and Austen is all excited and wired, I don't know, but he wants to go out. Mike has already gone to his Business School party in Fort Worth and so the three of us head toward Greenville. I suggested the Green Elephant and we were on our way and I was like, I'm not sure what street it is on, because it moved and Jacque goes you know what street it's on you've been there and I thought she was crazy and I go, I guess we can go to the Barley House, because I haven't been there. And she goes, yeah, the old Green Elephant and I'm like, whaaa? She wanted the old Green Elephant, the Barley House, and I was looking for the new Green Elephant and I was tired and so confused. But we made it to the Barley House AND found a parking spot so we went in and had a few drinks. This really great band was playing, maybe Chris Holt, we aren't sure if that's the lead singer or the band or if the waiter was just giving Austen his name... Anyway, so that was a pretty good time. But I seriously can't stay up that late any more. It's killing me. I'm becoming such a school marm. Yeesh.

Oh, hey, if you noticed in the Dallas Morning News an article about a cafeteria worker who viciously ripped a hot lunch tray from a kindergartener and throwing it away in exchange for cheese and crackers because they hadn't been approved for free meals yet ... yeah, that was about my school. Yeesh. It didn't happen exactly the way the incident was portrayed in the paper, but it did happen. Good grief!

My Head Hurts...

I went 24 hours without a huge dose of caffeine. Around 1:30pm, my brain started to eat itself. I didn't get coffee or soda because I woke up late not wanting to face the fact that my shower was going to be horribly unpleasant because of the "different" smelling water, due to University Park's water source issues. I knew it smelled funky on Thursday, but I made it through a shower in denial that the smell was anything more than early morning confusion. It was horrible. I couldn't take a shower this morning, so I went to school dirty and miserable. When I got home from my caffeine free new teacher seminar, I saw an email from SMU explaining the different smell was due to mixing of two water sources - something about foam and an emergency supply. I don't know. But let me tell you one thing, boys and girls...different is not the word for it. Manure and rotten eggs. Those are the words to describe the smell of the water coming out of all the sinks and the shower. Now, I find it VERY difficult to to cleanse myself in water that smells like that. It's not okay. All that could make me happy right now is a shower and the biggest frappacino you've ever seen. Oh and to see "Skeleton Key". Can't believe I haven't seen that yet. I might have been a little snappy with the kids today. I don't know why, maybe a lack of caffeine, maybe I'm fed up with relatively normal kids behaving as if they have the minds of a five year olds. Okay, I'm going to sleep off this caffeine headache.

This week has not been fabulous...

You know how no matter how many good things happen during the week, they can't make up for the crappy parts?

Monday I had a paper due at 11:00am. I can't even believe I finished it. That puts a sour start to the week.

I went to Razzoo's for Mardi Gras on Tuesday. It was good times. After we left Jacque and I were going to the car and this van drives along beside us, pulls past the empty space next to my car and then proceeds to back into it, so that the driver's side is facing my driver's side. We're getting into the car and the driver goes, "Can I compliment y'all?"
Not to turn down a compliment before I hear it, I turn around and give Jacque a confused look and then turned back.
The guy goes, "Who is the busty one?"
What????!!!???
Jacque goes, "yeah..."
The guy goes "what, are you a 38DD?"
He started to say something else, but at that point I decided to sit down in the car and close the door. The CREEPY GUY in the VAN decides to drive off. Geeeihh!!

Wednesday I went to work, then class, then work, then skipped class and went home. I went to Jacque's for dinner. That was nice. Watched Alias. Always a good time.

Thursday I wore my stain-resistant khakis. I had to be at work by 8:15am. Around 3pm I realized when I saw my reflection in the window of Smoothie King, that my fly was down.

The humiliation I felt was so overwhelming.

Don't people tell you these things anymore!?! But then I zipped up, went back to work and had sushi for dinner with Kim. I wandered into the game, late, and went to Ben's afterward. All in all great. Kim displayed the marvel of my stain-resistant khakis to everyone at the table, by repeatedly dropping Cosmopolitan on my pants. It was fun. And we saw lesbians singing Faith, by George Michael.

"HA!! Lesbians!" as Jason would say... :)

I have been so tired this week and the Starbucks that I have enjoyed almost every morning this week is making me crazy. Wish me a happy weekend.

Doom...

I think I have managed to screw up my entire semester and my plans for the future, based on the actions of one 24-hour period. I knew that I had homework due on Saturday after Pigskin. So on Friday instead of doing it, I worked. Then instead of going over all of my classes to see what else I had to like I had written on my To Do: list, I didn't. Because I'm not very bright. All of the assignments for another class were due by 5pm on Friday. She said no late assignments will be accepted. I am so fu#@ed. I have to have a B average in the Teaching Program to stay in - and I have just screwed myself. I will now commence in crying and begging for the next 22 minutes. Because then I have to go to class. Doom...