Study Hell

Everyone who has ever been in a classroom has heard some form of the "I-just-gotta-get-outta-class-if-it-kills-me" question. Today it came from a student I have never seen before....keep in mind I have been there since the first day of school.
"Miss- I need to go see miss so-and-so." says random student
"Do you have a pass?"
"No, but yo if I dont get down there soon see im gonna be in trouble you kno dat and then yo I just gotta go cause i gotta."
"oh i see. silly me. well....here's the thing. we have a test today and since I dont know your name you obviously dont have any grades in the book so "yo" you need to take the test to make up fo' time you see cause you gotta pass this class, and I dont even know your name "yo" to write you outta pass to see miss so-and-so." I say all of this with a little funky groove beat behind my big bad rapper self....and random kid looks at me. Tells me I am "whack". Then sits down to silently begin his test....until miss so-and-so calls for him. turns out he wasnt lying.

School Days.

So school has started, and I hate getting up early. I really went into the wrong profession. During first period today I was falling asleep with my students. I'm student teaching in an 11th grade English classroom in Rochester. I can't tell you what school because I'm supposed to promote to the public, my friends and family, perfect strangers, and potential Roberts Wesleyan College students that I have a wonderful student teaching placement, that Rochester City Schools are run wonderfully, and that Roberts truly cares about each and every one of its student teachers. So I um...love it there. Yup sure do. And I love me students. This I am not being sarcastic about. I love them. They have such character and wit and are down right hilarious. I can't use their names either due to privacy laws and the fact that I can neither spell nor pronounce most of their names. One girl with a 25 syllable first name told me that its a combination of "my mamma's name, my daddy's daddy's name, my neighbor's name and my mamma's first dog."
"I'm sorry? Did you say your mamma's first dog?"
"Uh-huh. So what? You don't love your dogs?"
Her name was something similar to Sha'earl'Na-Spot. I'm not kidding.

Its going to be an interesting semester.

red or white?

I'm starving. Completely famished....and grumpy. I haven't eaten since 6:20 this morning. I have been at school in a 90+ degree classroom all day with kids I don't really care for. I have a 35 minute drive home on construction ridden roads complete with detours. I have to be at work in three hours. and I CAN'T MAKE DINNER because the contractor is busy ripping out my kitchen floor piece by tiny piece. In fact there is a plastic wall between me and my kitchen. I can't even put the milk I bought on my way home in the fridge because there is no way to get there.

I could have a glass of wine since the wine rack is in the living room and I carry a bottle opener with me everywhere I go....only I have no glass....

hmmm.....

My perfect little world

In my head I had imagined putting an addition on my house would be a breeze. Some handyman would come, build it, leave, life would go back to normal.....in my imagination there was also a significant number of fluttering blue birds, whistling dwarfs and a princess crown on my head...you know how it goes.


Who would have guessed that as they tore the floor up from a 108 year old house that they would find the entire sub floor dry rotted to dust? Who would have known that more concrete would need to be poured and molded as the foundation crumbled between their hands? Who knew that an easy no-big-deal project would be RUINING my LIFE right now? Who knew?

Mine, Mine, Mine

Here is my house getting bigger.

Now that the door has been moved, I realize I will need to have the deck extended, or steps built or simply acquire longer legs to make the leap into the house. How come every time it seems like we are making progress and moving forward I find a million other things that need to get done?

Where the yellow stops used to be the ceiling.

I am excited that I will be able to stand up in the dining room now. And someday in the near future I hope to be able to have more than one person eat dinner with me, because there is room for me to put chairs all the way around my table and not only on one side. I can't wait until I can blow my nose and not have sawdust come out.......Life is good.

There is sawdust

...everywhere. I can't remember what it was like to have freshly vacuumed carpets. I wake up every day at quarter to seven when my carpenter and his cute, young assistant show up with their hammers and saws and other ungodly loud construction thingies. I still hear the ringing in my ears and banging in my skull long after they have left at night. I am no longer excited and have discovered yet again that home improvement projects are not my cup of tea.






I am hoping that all of this nonsensical noise and money and sweat will really increase the value of my little house so that I can sell it and move home and forever rely on other people to do my work for me.


Note: Cute assistant in blue.




















Alright, so I'm lying a little. I am having fun. Sorta. I have been painting my house, one little bit at a time and I really love watching it transform from dirty, old white to sparkling, fresh, and bright. Its green, with white trim and dark green accent and I love love love it. I'm adding a little powder room and extending the kitchen so I get to pick out tiles and counter and cabinets and all sorts of other fun things, and as long as I don't think about all the money I'm spending, I do alright.

Zombies ate my brain

I have corrected my thesis 8,562 times. I have replaced, rearranged, rewritten, reorganized, and restructured every line, sentence, word choice, and piece of punctuation. I have followed every obscure APA guideline. I have been up for 24 straight hours examining the thesis (thesi? thesises?) of my classmates as they examined mine. I have contributed to the drinking of 5 pots of coffee, 13 coronas, one bottle of wine and some strange lime cactus flavored mic ultras. I have moved countless periods from where they look like they belong to the end of long citations. I have kissed the ground that my reader walks on. I have driven the 17 minutes back and forth to campus 6 times in one day. I have single-handedly wiped the coffee shop out of white chocolate syrup this week. It never crossed my mind that the drinking of coronas might have been counter productive.

I am going to bed....I have until 3pm tomorrow to have two, finished, beautiful, eloquently written copies on the desk of the director of graduate education.

Here comes the bride, part 3:

Playing on the swings.... we did kick the flower girl off.....
someday we might grow up. someday....












Andrew wearing a wedding band.....


















One too many adult beverages....
but we needed to get two at a time because
we never knew when the alcohol was gonna run out.

















The new couple singing together....enough said.

























Sister of the bride Erin (left) and sister of the groom Leesha-something-something (right). (minus the afro for the moment).























































The whole gang. Ker, Oz, Pat, Todd, Abby, Me, Drew....

Here comes the bride part 2:

So Todd and I arrived in Ellicottville around 1, checked into Holiday Valley, (where I am definitely making the bf go with me skiing this winter), and made our way to where the wedding took place. First, I love the charm of Ellicottville with all its pretty little B&Bs and tiny bars and places to eat. Its cute. So I was imagining the house that Kerri rented for her wedding to be a charming little Victorian with a pretty garden and a jazz band playing in the background. Really though.....this was the strangest wedding I have ever been to. I mean, it was nice. Kerbear and Drew were happy and in love and life is good......but.......

The house was about 2 miles outside the town, up a mountain of a driveway...I was wearing the cutest little silver heels which were not made for mountain climbing so I took them off. There was no flat ground on the property...except for a huge pond. The people who owned the house were there all weekend, getting angry that Kerri had invited so many people to her wedding. (even though they already ok-ed it, kerri had rented out the house for the whole week, and they had promised that they wouldn't be there.) There were not enough chairs for the 50 guests. There were no seating arrangements so one of out friends wound up standing all night while eating his meal that the catering company brought 68 minutes late. There was no cake, there was no "you may kiss the bride", there was no music....that is until the groom, the bride, and their best friend stated singing folk music with the guitar they brought along. I'm not kidding. My typical long island friend who hates anything that seems remotely "hick-like" was singing "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose..." at the top of her lungs while standing barefoot at the top of a mountain by a pond, with a crown of daisies in her hair. Granted she did look beautiful....but where was my friend? The bridesmaids were the grooms sisters, one of whom changed her name from Lisa, the Leesha-nan-er, or something like that, which she told me goes back to her pagan and latin roots....huh? But I was allowed to call her Lee if I liked. She also wore a large Afro wig for most of the evening. AN AFRO WIG! (please note she is not an african american woman) There was no first dance, they ran out of alcohol twice and had to run to the store......the groom's grandparents have a full time nurse who stole my shoes, TWICE. She stole my shoes. STOLE THEM! I know that the nurse gets paid for her services, she does not need to steal my shoes. I told her the first time that she shouldn't bother because you can't stand in the grass with them on, but apparently she didn't believe me because she said "Maybe you can't darling, but I am a lady, so I have the skills necessary to walk in heels." and then 30 minutes later proved her point by putting my shoes on her feet and walking around in them...until I noticed. I literally had to threaten to push her in the pond if she didn't relinquish my shoes.


The list goes on.....
I guess the weirdest part of the evening is simply the fact that one of the "fearsome foursome" is married. I have a hard time imagining Kerbear being Mrs. Kerri Ann Nixon. I have a hard time feeling like I am falling behind my friends who have real jobs, spouses, and children. I have a hard time knowing that the four of us won't be having sleepovers where we imagine ourselves marrying movie stars.... Someday I will have to admit that we are growing up....

I'll end by paraphrasing some of the speech that was made in honor of the bride and groom by Leesha-whatever:

"and there should be carrots, and celery, and red and yellow sauerkraut, and beans of all colors and flavors. And cheese, even bland store bought cheese with Gouda and cheddar. and sausage and chestnuts and all kinds of nuts really. pine nuts and almonds and coffee beans with beets...."

I have no idea what that meant....but I assume it must have meant congrats.

Thats Ker on the left, Abby, Todd, and me........

Here comes the bride....

My college roomie Kerri Ann Diers becomes Kerri Ann Nixon tomorrow at 2pm. Congrats to Ker and Drew and I love you both soo soo much. Can't wait to watch you begin your lives together....and drink until Todd is dancing topless on tables. I will NOT allow you to pee on anyone's front porch while wearing your wedding gown, although you are totally allowed to walk up to the bar and demand a drink from a "house" cup.