Another year older..

I know i havent posted in about forever, but I havent had a computer at my disposal since almost 2 weeks ago. I cant believe that it has been that long already. I hope everybody had a marvelous Christmas. I spent it at home with my family. It was great to be home. Got lots of what I wanted, and much that I was surprised about.

I woke up on Monday sick as ever. I had the flu something terrible. My parents had it the week before, but I thought all the germs were gone. Boy, was I wrong. All day Monday I was in terrible pain. Aches, pains, throwing up and everything else (I know you all wanted to know that). Yesterday the aches and pains were gone, but I was still fluey. PLUS, yesterday was my BIRTHDAY. Yes, I am now 24. I think it is ILLEGAL to be sick on your birthday. But, I was.. Oh well. It was still okay. Except I had to cancel all my birthday plans with everybody that I had plans with. That meant, making lots of phone calls while I was sick - that was not fun either.

Now, the day after, I am home - in Milwaukee. Still sick, but not nearly as bad. I just wanted to write again. But, I need to go and get some stuff around that I have been putting off for a long, long time.. Happy New Year!!

All for a video store....

Last day of work for me until January 4th. What a thought – I think that is just insane. Alright, so I applied to work at Family Video. My thoughts on this were – Im smart, and it’s a video store – how hard can the application process be. What are these people thinking. I had an interview on Tuesday with the store manager. Then I had to take this test (more on this in a bit) yesterday and if I passed the test I have to interview with the district manager. The whole time I’m thinking – “this is a video store, not brain surgery”. So, back to the test. I went in yesterday thinking about it would take 20-30 min. Yeah, not so much. It took over an hour. It was like taking my ACT’s again. There were 8 sections and they were timed. It had to do with comprehension, math, alphabetizing, spelling, and vocabulary. Some of the topics, I was like, what does this have to do with working here. For example: A store has grapes, apples and bananas. The average price is .30. If the grapes cost .10 and the bananas cost .45 – how much to the apples cost? Since when does a video store sell fruit?? Plus, the vocabulary had words that I had never imagined could exist. Oh, the math part. I am a math minor. I tend to think I can hold my own in the math section. But, they had us adding fractions, doing powers, diving fractions, finding the square root of 2403 (or some horrendous number). The whole test was just…. Wow…

Only 15 min. left until Christmas vacation starts.. Well, not technically. I have a staff meeting tonight at 4, but break from the students starts in 15 min. Then, Im going to go home. Eat some lunch. Maybe take a nap. Then, I need to go and find the hospital where my dr. appointment is at tomorrow. What a fun filled day. At least I will not be at work.. Enough for now..

Whats in my CD Player: Clay Aiken Christmas

Happy Belated Birthday & Random B-day Interjections..

Yesterday was my bestest friend in the whole world’s birthday. I didn’t say happy birthday yesterday on here to her, so “HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH” – belated. Though, I did sing happy birthday to her yesterday on her Instant Messenger and wished her a happy birthday when I talked to her. Our birthdays are 2 weeks apart. When we were in college, it was hilarious, because we used to do birthday math. Our other roommate (freshman and sophomore years) birthday was Jan 7, and we had a good friend who’s birthday was on the 2nd of some month (I don’t remember what month). So, we used to play birthday math – remember the days me (28); Hannah (14); Deborah (7); Eric (2).
Sarah / Hannah = Eric
Deborah x Eric = Hannah
Sarah – (Deborah x Eric) = Hannah
And so on it went – I just think we had WAY too much time on our hands.
Back to Hannah’s birthday. At one point last night; I had the urge to go get a small cake and celebrate Hannah’s birthday with her, yet alone (Hannah doesn’t know this) – but I didn’t. It may sound strange, if Hannah, Deborah and I had not done it our freshmen year. That’s right, we celebrated one of my friends birthday with cake and a poster – and the friend wasn’t even here – they didn’t even know it happened. It was my friend Mike’s 29th birthday. I don’t remember when it was – we aren’t in touch anymore. (We lost touch after he quit playing keyboards for Ty Herndon and got married.) I even have pictures of us celebrating the birthday with no birthday attendee… yeah, we did nonsense stuff like this all the time.

As a reminder – my birthday is in 13 days – December 28th. I am going to be 24 years old. Feel free to celebrate the day with a cake and party of your own. I will not even be offended if you don’t invite me. But, I will be accepting gifts – gifts of all kinds. I don’t discriminate against presents.

Song of the day: Happy belated birthday to Hannah. Happy belated birthday to Hannah. Happy belated birth-day to Haaannnnnaaaaahhh…. Happy belated birthday to Hannah.

Excited fact: I have 1.5 days of work left and then I am off for Christmas break – a whole 17 days off.. The perks of being a teacher. What am I going to do with myself? Any suggestions?

Random Stuff about me - 87 Random things to be exact..

1. Birthday is Dec. 28 (Ill be 24)
2. I love the color blue
3. I wear too much pink
4. My hair is currently 3 different colors
5. I used to like N’Sync and still really do
6. I love Bon Jovi
7. I really want to be a mom
8. I love Rocky Rococo pizza
9. I love wearing pigtails (though I don’t very often)
10. My best friend is Hannah
11. I hate coffee
12. My lowest grade in college was a B-
13. I love the computer game Zuma
14. It bothers me when people interrupt
15. My friendships are incredibly important to me
16. I love my big sister
17. I hate stupid people
18. My favorite flower is the daisy
19. I was gifted in elementary school (not sure what happened – lol)
20. My ideal job is playing guitar for a country singer
21. I have been to Nashville every June since 1996
22. I love canned Iced Tea
23. I am happy about 90% of the time
24. I am certified to teach grades 1-9
25. I teach grades 9-12
26. I live in a renovated attic
27. My favorite movie is “Where the heart is”
28. My favorite actor is Johnny Depp
29. I am obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer
30. I wake up at 6:25 every morning
31. I hate gold
32. I know how to knit a scarf
33. I have a Guinea Pig named Leo
34. Scrapbooking is a stress reliever
35. I blog about nonsense
36. Country music is an obsession with me
37. I know way to much useless country trivia
38. My apartments heat doesn’t work- and its winter in WI
39. I have one sister
40. My brother lives in Texas
41. I have 2 nieces and 3 nephews
42. I am easy to please
43. I love to read
44. Often, I am reading 2 books at the same time
45. I am a movie nut – though Im not good with actor/actress names
46. Text Messaging is an addiction
47. It is almost as bad as Instant Messaging
48. I love to watch Karaoke
49. I had a dog named, Toby, for 4 days
50. My dream house will have a wrap around porch
51. It will also have a porch swing that hangs from the top
52. My hair was purple at one time.
53. My eyebrow was pierced for a while
54. I got a tattoo about 3 months ago on the small of my back
55. I hate grocery shopping
56. I am very concerned about being on time
57. I was on my first city bus this summer
58. I graduated college Cum Laude with a 3.6 gpa
59. I love acting stupid with my best friend
60. It doesn’t happen nearly enough
61. My students make me laugh every day
62. They also make me wonder what will happen to them after the graduate
63. My students are high school drop-outs or teen parents.
64. I love dogs
65. I get drunk very quickly
66. DVR is something I have grown to love
67. I think Nashville Star is better than American Idol
68. I want to get married sometime soon.
69. Sometimes, I stare off into space
70. Catching snowflakes on my tongue is great
71. I love to play in mud puddles
72. My friends are all amazing
73. I have never had a cigarette in my mouth
74. Im a Bud Light girl
75. My baths last 10-12 songs
76. I love to color
77. Often times, I wonder if water towers are completely full of water
78. When I moved 1.5 ago, I flushed my live fish down the toilet
79. I think learning should be hands on
80. I love Christmas lights
81. I love having my neck kissed
82. I wish people didn’t lose touch
83. Im really not a very good driver – I don’t like lanes
84. Preferably, I would rather not have to wear shoes
85. My guitar playing is not where I would like it to be
86. I love my moms meatloaf
87. My voicemails messages ramble on

I need a parka...

I hate being cold - what i hate worse - waking up in a house that is cold and being told to check my vents. Does anybody really think I am that stupid.. The first thing I did was check my vent. AHH... Just come and fix it so im no an icicle in the morning and evening. I am going to have to wear a permanent parka from now on.

My weekend was fairly good. I went out on Friday night with some friends from work. The restaurant has terrible parking - so, when you get there, you have to park illegally in front of loading/fire doors, and then when a spot opens up the lot guy (if you can call him that), moves your car to the spot. Well, I am not too sure about how I felt about leaving my car keys with a random guy that i didnt. How did I know that my car would still be there when i came back.. And the good friends I have, reassured me, when I made the comment "he's probably sold my car".. that its illegal to sell the car - but he could probably sell the keys.. Thanks girls.. Then we went to Mel's for some drinks and card playing - I learned how to play asshole and Hearts (I know, I should know how to play both, but I dont.)

Saturday went to a Christmas block party with Steve. It was okay. Its always hard when you dont know most of the people and they are all older than you are. I felt like a I was 15 years old. I just couldnt relate to most of the things they were talking about. The party itself was fun - not much beats a bunch of drunk people.

I had one of my students come in today and tell me she was in love. I asked her why she thought that, and what she thought love was. I got the typical response - "I dont know, what is it". At that point, I realized that I didnt know how to respond to that question. How do you describe love? If somebody were to ask you what love was, what would you say? Well, I thought about that question for a while, and this is what I have come up with..

this is love (as far as what I think anyways)

As much as I have experienced and thought I understood love, I, as of about ten minutes ago, just figured out what it means to love someone. I mean REALLY figured out what it is to REALLY love someone. It goes so much further than just a feeling, or an emotion that is inside you. When you love someone, it means that you will do anything for that person. You will do whatever you can do to make them as happy as possible, even if it is not beneficial to you. Love is a selfless act, or at least the true form of love is. You feel so deeply for a person that you cant imagine doing something to them that will cause them any amount of pain or unhappiness. You always put that person's needs ahead of your own, and you are always willing to sacrifice for that person. If you truly love someone, you will always feel like you arent doing enough for them, and that there is always something mroe that you could be doing to make them happy. Love is a strong attachment or devotion to someone. It means that you are dedicated to a person, for better or for worse, and that there is no force on the earth that can break that attachment. Wow. We should all be so lucky to experience this feeling in our lives, and to know what its like to willingly sacrifice something that is important to you or something that you really want to do because you care to much about a person. So, here's to love, the most unselfish feeling that you will have know.

Quote for the day: Love like you've never been hurt....

TGIF

I am so tired today. I knew it was going to be one of those days. My alarm went off at 6:25 this morning, I shut it off and laid down until 7:02. Whoops. I had the intention of lying there for a few minutes until I woke up, but instead I fell back to sleep. Oh well. Got ready in 18 minutes. Good thing I took a bath last night. Though, I guess last night was my reason for sleepiness. I was up until almost 2am. Why? I have absolutely no idea. I just wasnt tired. Around 10:00pm, I had a wave of sleepiness, but I was chatting on Yahoo Instant Messenger with a few friends and by the time i got off it was after 11pm, and I was no longer tired. So, I sat there watching TV/Movies until I finally made myself sleep around 2am. Luckily, I am done working today at 12:30. Then, I can go home and nap. Nah, who am I fooling - I am going to go home and do laundry. I am almost out of clothes to wear...

Tonight I am heading out to Mel's on Water Street with some friends for dinner and some drinks. I think they have $1 taps; and that just cant be beaten. Probably be an early night. We are meeting around 6:30 and I plan to be home around 9:30... But, who knows. Plans change often. It'll be a fun time though - I think they will be 5 of us for dinner.. 5 crazy girls.. Yikes..

My day thus far has been good. I am half done - major plus. In my 4th hour, I just had one student - Albert. Albert makes me laugh - he does really good down here with me. Does whatever I ask of him, an does it thorough. But, when I send him back upstairs, he just refuses to work for Julia. Not really sure why. On Fridays, Julia gives quizzes, and Albert will NOT even attempt the quiz (he normally leaves after I send him up to Julia's or gets kicked out). So, he spend the entire 50 minutes with me here doing fraction rod stuff. He did really good - I just wish he would apply himself upstairs, because the credit he gets from me, is not nearly enough for him to pass the class.

Oh.. students just came in. I need to go.. talk to you later..

Slacking...

I have been a slacker lately on here. My last post wasn’t since the beginning of the week, and here it is Thursday already. I haven’t been extremely busy – just procrastinating. Maybe I have been waiting for something oh so exciting to happen. If that is the case, I think Id be waiting for a lllooonnnggg time yet.

Today, I have to work until 7pm. You gotta love these 11.5 hour days. It is parent teacher conferences from 3-7. In that 4 hour span, I will probably see 3 or 4 parents (if Im lucky). When it comes to high schools – especially alternative high schools, parents just aren’t as involved as they maybe should be. We have 240 students enrolled. My guess is that about 30 parents will show up. Oh well. I get out tomorrow at 12:30 because of the late night tonight.

Tuesday we had a focus day at school. Focus day – it’s a themed day where there are no classes just speakers and sessions. The theme for this one was music. We had Karaoke, a blues demonstration, and a guy from the music business come and speak to the students. As the grand finale, Cincere (check out his website at http://www.simplycincere.com) was here to perform for the students. Cincere is a fairly new artist, who sings (what I would call) R&B. He was here because he went to Grandview High School himself. It was cool to see him come back to the school that he was at, and then tell the students his story and how he succeeded.

Other than that, my life has been fairly uneventful. I’m onto knitting another scarf. This one is blue and green. Try to contain yourselves, I know it is oh so exciting.

Note: My birthday is in 19 days. Everybody cancel your plans for December 28. We are all going out to have a good day – even though it’s a Tuesday. Im going to be 24.

Repeat weekend.. Sort of..

Oh my.. what to say about the weekend.. It was interesting.. and some parts were Deja Vous of Summerfest... My sister came down on Saturday morning.. We shopped at Johnson Creek for a little over an hour.. Just did some random shopping. Fun stuff... Then, went to dinner with Steve... the first meeting between sister and boyfriend.. No blood was shed.. Big sigh... Then, my sister and I went shopping some more in milwaukee..
The highlight of the shopping.. it may be a toss up between the Cinnabon (I always get to share one with my big sis when she comes to visit) or the 3 minutes we each spent in the massaging chair.. But, when we were done, our shoulders hurt more then they did when we started.. mental note.. massage chair good on lower back, bad on shoulder blades..
That night I went out with Sheila (my sister) and Steve. Wasnt real sure what to expect of the evening.. Started off at the Safehouse - it was kinda boring Saturday night. But, I did not tell them the password to get in; so, they played matador and bull... Sheila was the bull and Steve was the matador. .. what a sight to see... Then, we went to Guse's City Hall. We were there for quite a while.. Shot some pool, threw some darts.. Finally, went to Jock Stop (or Jock Strap if you are my sister).. and threw some more darts until some guy decided that we were done and restarted the darts.. it could have been that we were diddling around and playing darts very slowly..
Oh well.. Bar time came and we had to go back home.. There, we spent some time reminising (sp??) on Summerfest times.. oh, the fun we had then..
Alright, enough for now.. its almost 10pm, and I need to get ready for bed.. Im tired..

CD in my player: Lonestar Christmas album
Book Im Reading: Lovely Bones and A Child Called It (yes, i am reading 2 books)
Quote: History does repeat itself.. and that is not always a bad thing...

Random Ramblings....

Thursday, Thursday, Thursday. I am EXHAUSTED today, and I am not really sure why. I got a decent amount of sleep last night. Went to bed around 10:30ish. and got up at 6:25. Id say that is doing really well. I just want to go home and curl into a ball and sleep or at least cat nap.. But, its 2:30 and I have a staff meeting at 3 for about about half an hour.. Then, I can go home. But, I doubt that I will nap. I will read, knit, scrapbook.. Or one of the 10 other things that I could choose to do tonight... Sleep is NOT somethign I want to do. I think that is the biggest waste of time for the middle of the day. Unless its a once in a great while thing. Sometimes it is needed, and VERY refreshing.

My high schoolers today were a riot. I love high school. At least I love high school in the small groups. I do not know that I woudl want a full class of 26 of these attitudes. Though, at this school, getting all the students to show up, is amazing. (for example, yesterday, out of 22 students, Julia had 2). Giovanni today was trying to convince me that he was stripper and that he was available for private parties. Guadalupe thought this was hilarious and started asking him prices and what he wore. Needless to say, this conversation stopped quickly after that - talk tends to go downhill very quickly here if not controlled.

Last night was pretty calm. I got to see my sweetheart. He stayed over - I love Wednesdays just for that fact.

Tomorrow I have a cluster meeting with some people from work (other high school teachers). I am not real sure what we are supposed to be talking about, but we are meeting at the Chancery in Wauwatosa. It will be 2 hours of laughter and talk among us. For the most part, we get along really well.. But, I dont know how much of the talk will be centered around work. We tend to get off topic very easily. lol

On Saturday, my sister is coming to visit me. She is coming Saturday mid morning, early afternoon (probably around 11:30 or 12:00) and staying until Sunday afternoon. I think she is coming mainly because she is nosey about meeting Steve. She's my big sister and looks after me. What can I say; she loves me. Oh well. I love her too.

I am starting my countdown of days to go until Christmas break. I am at 10. There are only 10 because the last day (the 16th) I need to take off because I have a doctor's appointment. So, my last day is the 15th. So, only 10 more days to go. Then, I have 16 days off. 16 days, isnt that just crazy. I mean what is that about?

But, I need to be going now. My meeting is in about 15 minutes and I have to finish some stuff up quick before I go.

Movie Night Once Again..

Last night was a fairly busy night for me. In the terms of doing things; not being productive. I do not think that I did one productive thing all night. Nope, just kept busy. I actually had to leave work early yesterday so I could head to the office before I had my doctors appointment. My appointment was at 3:00. I got there about 2:45 (I have this thing about being early) and was in by 3:02 and done by 3:06. I just had a cat scan of my sinuses done. They laid me on this bench, I went into the cat scan machine, out, in the machine turned from vertical mode to horizontal mode, I went back out and i was done. I wonder how much that 4 minutes cost me.

Then, I made my way to the Domes parking lot to meet Patricia to pick up my bowling ball. The last week of our bowling league was last week and i couldnt be there, so she picked up my ball for me. What a nice friend. From there I drive my way to Grafton. It was Tuesday, and since I am no longer bowling, I decided to once again attend the traditional Tuesday night movie (its cheap night). I used to go every Tuesday with Katie, but then I started bowling and could not do both on the same night.

Started my time off in Grafton at the craft store. I bought two balls of yarn. I am starting another scarf and couldn't decide what color to make it, so I bought 2. Then, headed off to Culver's for dinner. Yum.. Soup, cheese curds and root beer. What a good dinner. It is occasionally. lol. Then, we headed to Shopko where i bought a couple of christmas presents. I am officially done shopping for my family. I have one thing to buy for Hannah yet and Katie to shop for, but that is all. Yay!!

The movie we saw was "Princess Diaries 2". It was good. If you liked the first one then I think you would have liked the this one. Of course, you knew within the first 10 minutes of the movie, who she was going to end up with at the end, it was just a matter of how they end up together. I have to admit it was cute, but i am sure glad I didnt pay the $8 to see it in a regular theater.

Well, Im off.. more later..