Eat Sh** and Die

So, tonight I braved the weather, and by weather I mean the remnants of yesterday's storm. I was walking at warp speed because it was freezing cold outside. I had to slow down at frequent intervals to insure that I didn't fall on the ice patches that developed after the sun was out today. I handled it like a pro (if I do say so myself). That is, until I saw home sweet home and imagined the warmth that awaited me within mere steps.

They did a pretty good job of plowing our driveways, but I figured that I was bound to hit a patch of black ice since I was assuming that the plowing had eliminated all sources of risk. Stupid K! In order to avoid imagined risk, I headed through the cars (and the unplowed snow) thinking that I would have better traction. Stupid K! It sleeted last night before it snowed. That means that when my foot hit the "snow," I immediately found myself lying on the ground. Ouch.

As I pulled myself up from the ice I thought, "wow, I just ate sh** and (nearly) died." When I called E to whine about my wipeout and subsequent pain, he reminded me that I'm not the only one who has found him or herself failing to maintain their upright position. But, in doing so, he reminded me that I did not deserve his sympathy in the slightest. One time E was upset about his Colorado Buffs losing a football game and decided, as any red-blooded American male would, to get his frustration out by watering the plants on the patio. As he returned to the kitchen after emptying the watering can, E ate sh** and (nearly) died. I looked up from the work that I was doing, having missed the actual fall itself, and said, "how'd you get down there?" Not, "are you okay?" But, "how'd you get down there?" Some friend I am. Full of compassion, as also evidenced in the "Wow, this bed is really bouncy" story. Apparently, in my case, the karma was not instant, but let me tell you what, the pain was.

And, for that reason, I have to sign off. I need to take the pressure off the bruised parts of my body and use my two-hour snow delay tomorrow morning to rest the muscles in my arms that were stretched from the flailing that I must have done on my way down. I should have stuck with my own advice from last night and stayed in. But then, I guess, karma would still be on my a** instead of me landing on it. I'd rather be done with it.

Be careful out there.

You've made a wise choice my friend...

If E were here, he would say these very words to me. I've taken Stephanie up on her recommendation based on last weekend's excursion out into the winter mess that is D.C. I'm staying in tonight. I thought about going out. Part of me really wanted to go out. Part of me is really bored now that I'm not out. However, I've just happened to look out the window to find that the streets are already covered in a thin layer of snow and sleet. I have the comfort of knowing that I won't have to be walking home in that at 2:30 asking myself "what was I thinking?" I've patted myself on the back for making the right choice.

So, instead of running into the crazies out there, I'm enjoying a wonderful evening of staying warm instead of baring my face to the elements, wearing slippers instead of heels, listening to good music (something I don't do nearly enough of lately) at a reasonable decibel, and deciding which of my five flavors of ice cream to enjoy. If the weather were better, I'd venture out to buy bananas to make banana splits so that I could have at least three of the five flavors all at one time. That would be my own personal heaven. Also, I'm working on planning three very important weekends. First, my friend, Z, is coming to D.C. next weekend. My friend, K, is coming for the weekend on which all the valentines will be celebrating. She's going to be my valentine. And finally, in preparation for spring break, I am dreaming about all the fun things that I will be doing in New York City. Suggestions are always appreciated. Especially if they involve food and good wine.

Among the less glamorous part of my staying in is doing my laundry. I'm in the middle of a marathon. Now I believe people when they say that I have too many clothes. Tomorrow, though, their criticism won't matter at all. Many of my friends will probably wake up, as I did this morning, with a throbbing head, bleary eyes, and a parched throat saying to themselves, "what was I thinking?" And, once again, as I stand in front of a full closet of clean clothes that I can layer to keep myself warm in this weather, I'll still be thinking, "you've made a wise choice my friend."

Snow=Crazy

Last night, against my better judgment, I was convinced to brave the devilish weather for the almighty party. Overall, I'm glad I did it, but the evening had enough questionable experiences to make me question my own sanity. It seems that in D.C., when it snows all of the crazies come out.

I ride the Metro so frequently that it has become a verb for me rather than I noun. I often find myself saying, "yeah, I'm going to metro down to Dupont Circle for dinner." Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I have never really had a bad experience on the Metro. People complain about the red line being inconvenient and problematic, but I have never had a REALLY bad ride. Until last night, that is. When I got on the train in Bethesda, I questioned the intelligence of getting on the first car knowing that that was the one that got mangled when the two trains collided a few months ago. Well, the trains didn't crash, but some guy in my car did. He was high as high can be with pinky nails about an inch long. Underneath his skull cap he had massive headphones which were blaring techno music to which he was dancing all around the train until he thought it was a better idea to run from one end to the other while the train was in motion. How he avoided those metal poles with his cap pulled down over his mostly shut eyes is beyond me. What he couldn't avoid, though, were the multitude of laps that he was thrown into during his spastic dancing.

I think everyone was getting a little uncomfortable because we were all looking around wondering who was going to be the one to hold the guy down if things got out of hand. Well, thank God for Metro. They have police officers at the stops. Luckily, one got on our car to keep an eye on our coked out friend. Unluckily, she was a sixty-ish woman who did not even approach the man. She just watched, you know, to make sure things didn't get out of hand. I'll be honest, she didn't offer me peace of mind.

Then as I waited for my friend on the platform, I was hit up by a homeless woman who wanted money to feed the twins that she didn't have with her. In trying to get away from her, I ended up next to a woman who was dressed like she was really rich, but her behavior suggested that she was attempting to pick my pockets. She sidled up to me with weird conversation and as I made attempts to regain my personal space, she kept stepping right back into it. Luckily, I made it home with all of my money. I'm not sure if I look especially friendly or weak or naive or what, but these women insisted on talking to me like I was their best friend. This has never happened to me on the Metro before either.

And, finally, this one's not crazy, but is disgusting. As I was waiting for my train to take me home, the girl standing next to me leans over the railing and pukes up her dinner and the time and money that she spent at the bar. Luckily, her boyfriend was there to hold her hair back so I felt no responsibility to take care of her. I moved to the other side of the platform. I hope that doesn't make me a bad person.

By the end of the night I was walking home at 2:30 in the morning, 22 degrees, and the winds were blowing snow in my face at 15 mph. Take it from me. If you go out on a night like last night, you're bound to run into some crazies and you're a little crazy yourself. But, at least you'll get some good stories out of it.

All dressed up and it's starting to snow

This weekend I was supposed to drive an hour and a half to see my friends L and E and their new baby. It's a Saturday, my day to sleep in, and I got myself up at 7 so that I could go to the gym, pack, and make it to the driver's license place on the way down there before the snow really started coming down. I managed to run, lift, shower, and pack by 9. I put my coat on and looked out the window before I left only to find that it had started to sleet.

I'm not sure that I've had a more disappointing moment in my recent memory. I was all dressed up (including having blown my hair dry which I rarely do), but I decided that it might be safer to stay here since we're supposed to have 8 inches of snow. So, I did what any normal person would do on a day like today. I got back into my pajamas, pulled my hair back, and settled in for a day of movies and reading.

E called this morning to let me know that my college professor was on Fox News this morning. I got the call because I have an enormous crush on this professor because of his well-endowed...brain...really. To see what I mean, check out his book Union of Words. Or, look at some of his insights on the most recent presidential debates. I took a class with him called American Presidential Rhetoric. We studied presidential speeches throughout history (as you might have guessed). It was easily my favorite class in college because it was the most interesting and intellectually stimulating. This professor was one of the most knowledgeable and articulate people that I've ever met in my life. He was also the most approachable of all the professors that I had while I was in college. For the first time in my life, I was sincerely disappointed that I don't have cable. I couldn't have my professor pipelined into my living room to give me some intelligent company on my snowy Saturday morning.

I recognize that the abundance of hyperbolic statements and links in this email about my professor might make me look like a bit of a stalker, but I assure you that I was only using this opportunity to practice my html abilities...really. Plus, I don't have anything else to do now that I'm stuck here, all dressed up with no place to go...except the couch.

The best thing I've heard all day...

I'm in the office, minding my own business, as the other teachers discuss some of their students. One of my coworkers had this to say, "if you're looking for sympathy, it's in the dictionary between shit and syphillis." Of course, this was not said directly to the student, but it was enough to bring us all to tears with laughter. These are the moments that revive me.

How low can we go?

I think I've figured out the purpose of blogs. I can vent about the things that drive my crazy and pretend that people are listening. It's a nice feeling. Here's my vent for today:

I just finished teaching a horrible class. HORRIBLE!! My personality in the classroom is one of great patience. I rarely throw kids out of the room and you will know I'm getting frustrated, but you'll rarely see me lose my cool. Today was a day where I wanted to explode, but remained calm simply because I didn't have the energy to care. I passed out the exams that they took so that we could review the answers so that they could see where they went wrong and LEARN (because we're in school and that's what we do) from the mistakes. I was appalled when I had three (not one, but THREE) kids bring the whole stack back up to me and say, "take this. I don't even want it on my desk." I told them that they needed to hold onto it because we were going to review the answers. The response: "I don't care what the answers are. I already know my grade." Awesome. The rest of the class just went downhill from there. Complete chaos, disinterest, and flat out rudeness dictated the rest of our time together. Their excuse: "It's Friday." My response: "It's Friday for me too, but you don't see me acting like I'm five years old, do you? Grow up or get out of my room. I know you don't want to be here and if that's the case, I'd rather not have you here either. I'm sure the discipline office would enjoy your visit." I handled that well (can you sense the sarcasm?).

Then, I come back to my desk and take a little down time after the intense ninty minutes that I had just suffered through only to find an article on cnn.com about a kid in Wisconsin who is suing his public school district because his summer homework caused him "undue stress." You have got to be kidding me! You choose to take pre-calc and you don't want to do the homework because it takes time and effort. Here's my answer: be a slacker and don't take hard classes. If you value your social life over your education, then you can make the choice, but don't sue the state to punish the other teachers and students who DO care about the work that they have to do. I'm sorry, E, I know that you are diving headfirst into the legal world, but I'm not a big fan right now. Just because one kid is too lazy to do his work and too focused on gaining noteriety among his lazy, uneducated peers does not mean that the rest of us should be ordered to lower our academic expectations! (That's how angry I am. I just used two exclamation points in one paragraph.)

I've been trying to go into this new semester with a more positive attitude about being a teacher, but it's really, really, REALLY hard when I have to deal with the kids that I have and when I have to watch school districts shell out tons of money to defend their attempts to educate students. The district in Wisconsin is being sued for doing EXACTLY what it is intended to do. Let's keep lowering our standards and expectations while at the same time expecting kids to get higher scores on the tests that will determine whether or not the district gets the money it needs to operate during the school year. Good plan guys. You know who gets blamed when the kids don't make the cut, don't you? That's right, the teachers. I love this game! (But, I think that's the MLB's slogan, so I better identify them as a source so that I don't get sued).

Winter Storm?

So, I hear that here in the mid-Atlantic region, people panic whenever it snows. I find this to be extremely interesting. When I lived in the Midwest, I always thought that the weather out here was much worse than ours was in St. Louis. This may or may not be true, but what I have found to be very true is that people in St. Louis know how to handle the weather better than people here in the nation's capital.

We had one inch of snow during the school day yesterday. The kids (and the faculty) were excited about the possibility that we would be going home early. That did not happen, but we were delayed two hours this morning. Now, I'm not complaining because I got to sleep in. However, the delay was totally unnecessary. It was warmer outside at 7 a.m than it has been over the last few days, the streets that had been plowed and treated were completely clear, and there was even less traffic than usual because of the inauguration. I was looking at stuff on cnn.com about the inauguration and there was a picture of a guy from Texas who said that he would never come back north again because he didn't want to have to deal with another "winter storm." I've seen some storms in my day and I will be the first to tell you that what we had yesterday was no storm. There was ONE inch of snow on the ground and the streets were pretty clear by the time I left school at 4. The only reason it messed the whole city up is because no one here knows how to deal with the snow. Now I know the truth. The reason we Midwesterners always think the weather out here is worse than ours is because people ACT like it is, not because it actually IS. I never thought that I would be one to tell people to tough it out in the cold weather (being the cold weather baby that I am).

I will say, though, that I love living in a city where one inch of snow shuts the whole city down. This means that I'll have some snow days this year. It also means that I'll have to make them up in April, but a few days of unexpected rest, sledding, and a good excuse to make hot chocolate are never a bad thing. Storm away (or at least flurry because I'm a damn good actress).

GUTS and GERMS

Among the many reasons that I want to attend Georgetown for my master's degree are acronyms that the school uses for various organizations and methods of transportation. The Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle is known as the GUTS bus. The Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Services is known as GERMS. I was out to dinner with a Georgetown senior tonight who was telling a story that allowed him to say, "two of my roomates are germs" and be serious at the same time. I was impressed. That means that when you get sick, you call the GERMS to help make you better. And, as E once pointed out, when you take the GUTS bus and someone asks you how you were able to arrive in such a timely fashion, you can respond, "I just hopped on the GUTS and was here in no time." Of all the reasons to choose a graduate school, I think the most important one is the amount of humor that the school can bring to your daily conversations. Plus, if I go there, I really could be a GERM.

How you know you're a schmuck

I'm a schmuck. Yes, it's true. Yesterday I was talking to one of my very best friends, L, on the phone. I thought that something sounded weird in her voice. She didn't seem like she wanted to strike up any kind of conversation with me and the questions that I asked her were only answered with few words. I found myself wondering why she had called initially if she didn't want to talk. I thought, "we haven't talked lately, I can't have done something to upset her." Then I found out that her boyfriend was over, so I thought, maybe they are having issues that she can't talk about since he's sitting next to her. I didn't want to ask the question, though, because cell phones don't always guarantee the most private of conversations, plus she couldn't answer my questions fully anyway. Well, after several minutes of this and of my thinking that I just wanted to get off the phone and out of the uncomfortable conversation, she says "C wants me to ask you when you're going to say happy birthday to me."

Can you say "oh schmuck?" Because that's almost exactly what I was thinking, except with some different consonants. Um yeah. In the friend department, I pretty much suck. So, the reason that I've willingly admitted my shortcomings on this blog is because I need some good advice about how to make it up to her. I need something really, really, really good. Like, "I bought a plane ticket to come home and see you" good. Except that I'm not sure that will work, because she probably has no interest in seeing me. It was THAT bad. Oy!

I take it back

So, there are some times when I appreciate being an adult. Last night was one of those times. When you were eight, chances are that you were not allowed to venture out into the big city by yourself when you're still a little sick, drink beer with good friends, dance the night away at a blues club, and eat chili cheese fries and a cherry chocolate milkshake at 3:30 in the morning at Ben's Chili Bowl. There are few things that are better (after an evening of drinking) than a cherry chocolate milkshake, except maybe Dunkin Donuts. I had such a good time that I didn't make it home until the middle of the afternoon today. That's how you know it was a good night. It was just the refreshing outing that I needed after the end of the holidays and the long illness. Being twenty-four definitely comes with some unpleasant responsibilities, but thankfully my hope for my old age has been revived.

Oh, to be eight again

My friend L just called to say that her ceiling was falling down. It's been raining buckets in St. Louis for the past two days. Sure she can call her landlord, and he'll come, eventually, but we have to fend for ourselves now that we are adults. We have to worry about when he'll show up, how much damage will be caused to our belongings before he does, and how long our home will smell like wet plaster. If this is what the real world has to offer, I'm not so sure I'm excited about it. And to think, I wanted to get to the real world so quickly when I was younger. Now that I'm here, I just want to go back. MTV tells a ballsy lie every week when they broadcast a show called "The Real World." In whose real world do you live in a fabulous apartment, not have to worry about making a rent payment or about your ceilings falling down on your head in your dining room AND bedroom? Every week, we watch this show, "The Real World" to escape our own reality. It's an interesting concept, really.

I've been thinking about this alot lately because my sister and I bought ourselves our very first Christmas tree this year. We had the independence of going to the lot, picking out the tree based on years of shopping with dad, got it into our car by ourselves, dragged it into the building, up the freight elevator, and got it upright in the stand (and it stayed that way, despite the cat!). We had the pleasure of opening the box of ornaments to decorate the tree, we ooohhed and ahhhed at the ones that we literally hadn't seen in years, and we found our very own angel(s) for the top of the tree. Now, though, we are responsible for taking it down ourselves. When we were little, Dad let us have all the fun, but did all the dirty work himself. Maybe we had to take a few ornaments down, but we never had to take the actual tree out to the trash. Now M, my sister, and I have to find the time (and the heart) to pack the ornaments into boxes that they may not come out of for a few more years, take the tree out of the stand, drag it back down the elevator, and heave it into the dumpster. We actually have to make the holidays go away and that's really not very fun at all.

On another adult note, I have to go so that I can pay my property tax. Also, not so much fun. I'm going to try to count my blessings. My ceiling is still in one piece and over my head, and our tree is still standing, at least for one more night. One of my favorite poets, Billy Collins sums up the way that I'm feeling now in his poem, "On Turning Ten."

Boondoggled

My friend K, who is also struggling through the world of teaching, recently received an amusing email from a parent. Said parent wrote, "Given your science background, what torture methods do you recommend for motivation that do not scar?" Well, at least one parent has a sense of humor. I will say though, that in this litigious world, that's probably not something that I would want in print. I did like the fact that the same parent said that my friend K was being "boondoggled." What a great word! The word boondoggle worked well in Napoleon Dynamite and it worked well in that email. I'm going to make that one of my new catch phrases.

One of my favorite parts about being a teacher is that when you work with people, you never know what you're going to get. One day, you might get a bizarre email from a parent and the next you might have a kid write, "the ongoing war was taking its troll on the soldiers." No joke. Then again, you might also pick up some of their germs. Seems that's what I got this time around. I have the answer for that parent. Keep sending your kid to school. Sooner or later he will come home with some illness, and that's torturous enough. My current illness is keeping my head from functioning properly, so I'm going to spare you a long, cold-medicine induced post.

I hope you're doing better than I am. I'll see if I can bring myself to write more tomorrow since I'm not going in to work. Perhaps I'll find some material to comment on as I work through my disaster relief fund. Keep the suggestions coming and stay well. I'm not.

I'm Just Saying No

Over the past couple of days E and I went out to dinner with my family on two separate occasions. Both times, we asked for a table for one more person than we actually had in the party. The thinking behind that was that we would then have plenty of elbow room during the meal. Here's what I don't understand. Both nights, the waiter came to the table to get our drink orders and asked if the last member of our party was going to be joining us still. On both occassions, the mumbling stuttered response from members of our dinner party was, "I don't know. (One member looks at another member and asks) do you know if he/she is still coming? (The other member responds) Huh, uh, no, my dad/sister got sick. He/she called to say they couldn't make it." I'm not sure why it was necessary to fill the waiter in on the imaginary illnesses of our family members, but for some reason, we couldn't just respond, "no." I'm certain that the waiter couldn't have cared less where they were, all he/she knew was that the bill was going to be one-sixth or one-eigth (I hope I did the math right) smaller than they originally thought. I find that, on most occasions, the more words you use to explain something is directly proportional to the amount of trouble that you will find yourself in as a result of your explanation. I try to stay out of trouble at all costs. I'm just saying...

Anyway, I hope that everyone had a happy new year! It's high time that I get back into the swing of things after my extended break. It's one of the few benefits of being a teacher, but I'll take it.