So you could always meander and forever be able to run away...

Last night my roomie and I went to see "The Devil Wears Prada". My verdict = fun.

Summer vacay rolls on, and as such, I really have nothing to blog about except how I'm procrastinating doing my spring cleaning (which I saved for the summer). In lieu of having anything interesting in my life to blog about, I'm just going to listen to ten songs randomly on my iPod and blog about them. Here goes:

1) Without Mythologies - The Weakerthans > Probably one of my least fave Weakerthans songs, although I always enjoy it live. Who am I kidding? If they sung Frere Jacques live, I'd enjoy that too. I kinda always giggle at the word "hoar frost" in the song. I wasn't really sure of what that is, so I looked it up. Here's a picture of hoar frost.



2) Lost Together - Blue Rodeo > Whenever I hear any Blue Rodeo song, I think about how much I like Jim Cuddy's voice. I've seen Blue Rodeo twice; both times for free. Maybe I should pay to go to one of their concerts sometime...

3) Somthing Pretty - Patrick Park > My blog buddy m@ kept telling me to get this song and I finally listened and I'm glad that I did 'cuz I really like it. It makes me think of all of the farmland surrounding Stratford for some reason, even though the land there isn't filled with tobacco fields. Oh, thinking about farms has just made me remember that last night I had a dream that my friend Joanna's horse stepped on my iPod and broke it. I guess I should more accurately file that under the nightmare category.

4) Love & Death - The Stills > I'm bad. I bought the Stills' first album "Logic Will Break Your Heart" eons ago and I never really listen to it. I think that is because I bought it at the same time as I bought Damien Rice's "O" and that CD won the battle of competing interests. I have to admit that this song isn't bad but it's no "Lola Stars and Stripes". I love that freakin' song. Guess The Stills peaked for me with Lola. (Deep dark secret - Lola would be on my list of potential baby names. Not 'cuz of the song, I've always thought it's a neat name. However, too many celebrities have been stealing that name. Boo.)

5) Care of Cell #44 - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs > This is a cover of some sixties song from the aforementioned duo's 60s cover album. It's okay but it's too sugary sweet for my mood right now. Next please.

6) All You Need Is Love - The Beatles > Apparently I'm stuck in the 60s at the moment. But if I am gonna be stuck in the 60s, I might as well be stuck with the Beatles. My fave all time Beatles song is "A Day in the Life" which we studied in the World of Popular Music course I took in university. Best. Course. Ever. Love that my degree included studying musical movements from disco to punk to the Beatles and everything in between.

7) Don't Forget - Martha Wainwright > I like Martha a lot but I probably don't listen to her enough. With the exception of the song Bloody Motherfucking Asshole, which is in my top 20 of most-listened-to songs. I like its passion. I like its swearing. The song I'm listening to is pleasant, but maybe not one of my faves. Next.

8) Indefinitely - Travis > While I was watching Keane at Edgefest on Saturday, I thought that they reminded me a bit of Travis at time. Then I thought about how a lot of British bands are interchangeable to me. Still, they're good when you're in one of those, you know, mournful moods. I like this song but it's too slow for my mood at the present moment. Next.

9) Just Pretend - The Bens > Ahh, my favourite two Bens (Folds and Lee) with another enjoyable Ben (Kweller) thrown in for good measure. Oh, I totally think that they should call up Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie and ask him to be on the next EP. If there is going to be another...

10) 405 - Death Cab for Cutie > Oh wow, and speak of the devil! This is from the DCFC's live EP "The John Byrd EP". I love the line in this song "Misguided by the 405 and it lead me to an alcoholic summer..." Also I love the use of the word "askew" in this song. Not used nearly enough in song.

Okay, so my iPod just generated a total stream-of-conciousness post. Neat. Now I'm off to check the mail and maybe meander over to Starbucks. Ciao! (In honour of Italy, who's going to the World Cup finals...)

My God, she said.

Here's a rundown of my summer vacation so far...

Thursday Evening: Pub-Crawl with Colleagues

We drank from Yorkville to Little Italy and over to Chinatown. 'Nuf said. It was great; I haven't really done the drink with my colleagues thing before and I think my reputation of being quiet might be over and done with.

Friday Evening: Dashboard Confessional w City & Colour at the Molson Amphitheatre

Awesome, awesome show. Took my roommate with me; this was our first concert together after almost two years living together. Hmmm, how has she managed to live with me for that long without getting taken to a show? Anyway, she really likes City & Colour and enjoyed her intro Dashboard.

I was very impressed with Dashboard's show. I think he's grown as a performer since I saw him back in 2002. My only criticism is that the average age of the audience was far too young for my tastes. Blech. I hate feeling old.

Anyway, here's a picture from the show. A pretty far away shot, but you can see the cool lattern type things that were onstage.



Saturday Evening: Edgest at the Molson Amphitheatre

Two concerts in two days at the Amp. We only made it for the last three bands: Hot Hot Heat, Keane and Our Lady Peace. Hot Hot Heat were super fun, Keane were great (despite the fact it rained during their set and I got pretty wet) and seeing Our Lady Peace satisified my inner 17 year old. Fave song that OLP played was Hope - I'd totally forgotten that song existed.

Anyhow, today I relaxed and read for a bit. I need to start cleaning and organizing a bunch of stuff in my room (my first summer project) but why do today what I can comfortably put off until tomorrow.

Oh yeah, and happy belated Canada Day, y'all.

It's over, it's over, it's over...

Well that's it! I'm officially done, and have been for about 2.5 hours. I'm just chilling at home on the couch, waiting for some colleagues to call, and then we are going on a pub crawl. Oh man, I haven't been on one of those in eons. I am looking forward to this.

You know, I've been looking forward to summer vacation forever now, but now that it's here, I have a bit of a sense of melancholy. I don't know why. It could be that the end of an old year signifies the eventual beginning of a new year which means change. I'm the type of person who is always resistant to change... Today I had to say goodbye to coworkers who are retiring, switching schools, etc. etc. and I guess that has me feelin' a bit sad. Plus, I got my schedule for next year and I'm not so sure about it. I actually get to teach a senior course, and I'm a bit excited about that, but I'm not sure about a couple of others. I also think that deep down I'm gonna miss a lot of the kids that I taught this year, especially my grade 9s, and I won't have them next year.

Anyway, as I ramble, I guess I'm feeling that typical feeling when you end something and it's just done. There's no fanfare, not anything really and you feel a bit let down because you were so excited for whatever to be done. Plus, I think I just have to get into the swing of vacation. My life is tyically ruled by bells, and I gotta get used to no bells for two months.

Last summer I didn't feel this way so much because the day after the last day of school, I hopped on a plane to Australia. Moral of this story: go on big trip at the beginning of summer to avoid end-of-school-year ironic melancholy. Had to throw the word ironic in there because I think it's so ironic that I'm feeling down at the beginning of the vacation I was counting down for.

On that note, I'd better get out the door for my pub crawl. To quote Homer (Simpson), "To alcohol the answer to, and cause of, all of life's problems!"

Oh yeah, and happy summer ya'll.

My capillaries scream.

Happy new Dashboard Confessional CD day! I'm such a geek, I know... But I've really been looking forward to this album for some reason. I think it's because I decided that it was going to be the soundtrack of my summer (with a name like Dusk & Summer how could it not?). I'm on my first listen as I blog, and so far I'm thinking it's going to be really really good. Oh, and I'll be able to cap it off with the concert on Friday. I'm so excited.

So I "worked" from "home" today. This means that I slept in, watched TV, made some necessary phone calls and filled out some necessary forms, walked to get my new CD, detoured to Indigo and bought a new book and chilled at Starbucks for a bit.

The book I got is "Suite Francaise" by Irene Nemirovsky. Nemirovsky was a writer of Russian descent who lived in France during WWII. Her family fled to the French countryside to hide from the Nazis and she started to work on an epic novel. She was taken to a concentration camp in 1942 and killed. Her daughters spent the rest of the war fleeing and hiding from the Nazis, but they were able to carry a suitcase containing their mother's work. They assumed that what was inside the suitcase was a journal, and decided it would be too painful to read. 65 years later, one of the daughters started to read her mother's work and found out it was a novel. It was published in 2004 and just recently translated into English. Reviews say that it's amazing and even better than the backstory. Unfortunately, Nemirovsky never finished it and only two of the five parts were completed. Anyhow, I decided it may be a good start to my summer reading.

I chilled in Starbucks for a bit and enjoyed another banana creme frap (my drink of the summer). Starbucks for me is like the preppy cool boy (or girl, for male readers) that you may be skeptical and wary of at first, but then you get to know him and find out he's not that bad at all. He's even pretty darned good. Today as I was chilling with my frosty beverage in a comfy leather chair reading my new book, I was offered a sample of their new tangerine chilled beverage and then given a free coupon for a banana creme frap. Oh, how Mr. Preppy Cool Boy is totally winning me over right now. I've almost forgotten about The Second Cup, my old reliable boyfriend. He never gave me freebies and his chilled beverages have changed and are not as good as they used to be.

(Aside: Oh my gosh I am dying over the song So Long So Long on my new CD! It's got Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows singing along. It's great. Oh my.)

Here's something for all of you Coldplay fans that frequent my blog - I came across this download of a Nelly Furtado song featuring Chris Martin song that didn't make the album because of label nonsense. I like it a lot.

This article about the new Harry Potter book concerned me. I hope I hope I hope I hope she doesn't kill him. Not because I want him alive for sequels, but poor Harry has had so much happen to him - can't he live happily ever after??

Happy hump day to you tomorrow. I'm going to have to make an appearance tomorrow to hand in some stuff and then it's grad. Thursday's our year-end staff meeting/lunch and then I'm dunzo. Woot! (Yes, I think my daily reading of pinkisthenewblog has rubbed off on me. I now think like Trent writes.)

Today I'm sinkin' lower than the Sun does on a Sunday...

Whoa, long time no blog. I've been sort of MIA from the universe of the Internt for the past few days. Just haven't felt like staring at a computer screen for a bit, I suppose.

Well, school's pretty much done with. We have some grad activities and such to finish off - Thursday is officially my last day but really all I have to do this week is clean my desk and organize my binders for next year. Long live vacation!

The weekend's been pretty good. My friend Mathew had a bday get-together on Friday night. After going for dinner at Marche (or Richtree as it's now called) we went to someone's place to chill. The apt was right by the university which made me feel *almost* like the clock had turned back.

Last night Becca T and I hung out and watched the movie North Country. We drank some South African wine; perhaps starting a new trend of having our wine match the nationality of the star of whatever movie we're watching. It was a pretty powerful movie; I cried a few times but I blame the alcohol which sometimes makes me hyper-emotional.

I bought a CD on impulse this weekend - "Puzzles Like You" by Mojave 3. I was at HMV and they were playing it and I thought whoa, this is super fun summer music - I must have it! But they were selling the disc for $22.99 which is ridiculous, so I crossed the street to another store and got it much cheaper.

Hmmm, yeah, so right now I'm spending my Sunday afternoon doing laundry. The laundry night in my building is typically super busy on a Sunday night, so I was wary of attempting it on a Sunday afternoon, but it looks like everyone procrastinates with their laundry 'til Sunday night, thus leaving it really empty on Sunday afternoons.

In concert news, I'm going to see Dashboard Confessional/City & Colour next Friday. Then, on Canada Day, I'm going to Edgefest which is sure to please my inner 17-year old because Our Lady Peace is headlining. Keane, Hot Hot Heat, Mobile and Neverening White Lights are playing too. Should be fun. Oh, and I also scored Sarah Harmer tickets for July 27th which is the day before I leave for Britain.

So, I guess my summer's shapin' up to be OK.

I'm not feeling strong so save it for someone else.

Last summer I went to Australia. Bought an aboriginal painting on canvas at a market in Kuranda (a town in the rainforest). Intended to get it framed.

During Christmas break, I went to Cuba. Bought an oil painting on canvas in the market in Havana. Intended to get it framed.

At the end of March, finally dragged my ass to get my paintings framed.

Of course, out of all of the different frames, I pick one that turns out to be on backorder. The back order kept dragging on and on and on. The store kept calling me back and saying "We're so sorry, it's never taken this long before... It will be two more weeks." I say "Well, it took me months to bring them in for framing, what's another 2 weeks?"

Anyway, they were finally done on Friday. I picked them up today. I got a discount for the insanity. Woot. Pictures of my nicely framed paintings are below. (The pics are crooked... they're actually quite straight on my wall thanks to the sharp eye of my roomie.)

Anyhow, my P1 class wrote their exam today. I took them (the exams, not the class) to Starbucks and marked them while enjoying a banana creme frappucino (highly recommended).

While marking, I realized that I am probably Starbucks' target customer because their music was totally suited to my tastes (Damien Rice, Rufus Wainwright, Dashboard Confessional). Felt like I was listening to my iPod. (Actually, I was... but I kept hearing lots of songs in between the songs on my iPod.)

Anyhow, 2 more sets of exams to be written and marked and I'm ever so close to summer!

True dat, double true.

I've entered the sweet time of the school year called exam week. Today was tutorial day. I had 5 kids come to see me. I joked with another teacher that since we had so few kids come see us for extra help, it must mean that we are fabulous teachers and that they understand everything. Yup. That must be it. Has nothing to do with the nice weather and the World Cup...

So, it was a break-neck trip home. My pal Teresa was dropping her son off in TO so I scored a free ride to the wedding. Thank you Mapquest for the fabulous directions. The ceremony was quick, and I remained tear-free until I hugged my friend afterwards. Right now I'm rocking lots of mosquito bites, because my friends and I hiked over to the police training field to play on the equipment in our dresses and heels. (The wedding was at a police rec centre.) Then I drank enough to tear up the dance floor for a bit (read - I actually danced). Oh, and I was contantly mauled, dragged, and spun until I felt sick by the 18-year old sister of the newly-wedded Mel. Good times.

The next day the girls and I went for brunch (slow service) and then did a super-secret, super-quick scrapbooking session to make a book for my friend's fifth wedding anniversary. After this, I had 3 hours to celebrate Fathers' Day with dear old dad, who was grumpy because his "shovel foot" has been acting up. My dad, aka Psycho Gardener, has dug so much with his foot that he's developed arthritis in his digging foot. (I have come up with a scientific term for this malady.) Anyhow, heat 'n humidity aggravates the shovel foot.

After that, I hopped aboard the train back to TO.

Right now I actually have the hockey game on in the background as I blog. The Oilers are behind. Boo.

All the best DJs are saving the slowest song for last...

Well I made it!!! The last day turned out to be rather anti-climatic. My P1 class was crazy (grade 9s), P2 was subdued and P4 were really no different than usual (a little bit crazy). Anyhow, they still have their exams to worry about but I've got a weekend free of work. Woo!

World Cup Story of the Day:

The Mexicans in my period 2 class were begging me to start their exam on Wednesday an hour earlier so they could catch the beginning of the game. They couldn't seem to get the fact that I don't set exam times and that they are set in stone. It made me laugh that they though if they begged long enough I'd agree.

This weekend is my friend Mel's wedding. I have about a thousand things to do before I leave tomorrow. Hope that you all have fantabulous weekends!!

There's only one thing to say...

Countdown Update: 1 more day of classes!!!

Cannonballs and kettle drums, catapults and pellet guns, kiser blades and minor chords...

I think I've totally got my summer blog groove on. I'm posting every day. Last time I did that was in the summer. Guess I'm prepping myself for my vacation.

Today's lyric title is from the lead song from Danny Michel's new album Valhalla. I'm a-liking it lots. Danny's a nifty singer-songwriter based somewhere in Southern Ontario and he's worked with a lot of other cool Canadian musicians (he played guitar on Sarah Harmer's last tour). He's great to see live, so if he's in your neck of the woods, I suggest that you go. Or, go buy his new CD. It's even got a No Doubt cover song on it...


Anyhow, today was a rather crazy day at work. I'd have to say I'd file under a bad day, even though it really wasn't all that bad... However, it caused me to become so lost deep in thought on my way home that I actually missed my stop. I've never really missed my stop in my entire communiting career - which is impressive since I often fall asleep on the subway. Today, I wasn't sleeping, I was just thinking. Then I noticed that the train is above ground at the Bloor Viaduct, which is not part of my route home.



So, after I'm too stunned to hop off at Broadview, I get off at Chester station to turn around. I decided that since I'd gone all the way there, I might as well walk around Greektown for a bit. So, after my brief walk, I turned around and made my way home without missing any more stops.

So here's hoping that tomorrow is a better day and that I don't miss any more stops!

Countdown Update: 2 more days of classes

ps Maybe my current blogging mojo is a result of the fact that I enjoy updating my countdown to the end of classes.

Addendum to World Cup Post

Oh, the World Cup madness does not end in my world.

Today, my period 4 classes started murmuring about soccer during exam review. "Let's get through this section and then you can talk about soccer as much as you want," I suggest. This works and we finish the review and then they enjoy 20 minutes of soccer-talking bliss.

Things I learn:
- Most of them think Brazil will win.
- One kid in my class can list the winner of every single World Cup ever. I tested him. I looked up past winners on the internet and he knew them all - all the way back to Uruguay winning in 1930. I was very impressed with him which lead him to say "I should get bonus marks for that. Bonus marks Senorita!"

(Aside, I cannot hear about Uruguay without thinking of the classic Homer Simpson line. Makes me giggle.)

Anyhow, I intend to stop World Cup related posts as soon as I can. The problem is that when in Rome you do as the Romans do. For me, Rome is my school, and the Romans talk about soccer all the damned time.

Countdown Update: 3 more days of classes

It is the soundtrack of your ever flowing life...

Ahhh... World Cup time in Toronto. Fun times. Now, I'm not a soccer fan; not really a fan of any sport per se (although I grew up watching baseball with my dad and can hold my own in a baseball conversation...) but I do like observing the pandemonium that goes with the World Cup. So many cars on the streets have flags attached to them. It just makes walking around kind of fun because you can test your flag knowledge. I think it reminds me of how multicultural Toronto is.

Something like 90% of the student population at my school are huge soccer fans. The madness started on Friday when kids in my period four class started to talk soccer. Then they asked me the "Miss, what are you?" question.

I get this question a lot from my students. A lot of them are either immigrants or children of immigrants, so they are keenly interested in cultural background. I gave them the standard "Half Polish, quarter English, quarter Welsh" answer.

"Oh Miss, poor you. Poland's gonna lose to Ecuador today." By gosh, they were right. The kids don't know science, but they do know soccer.

Today I had one student approach me and tell me that a really bad thing happened to her country. I was concerned, but it turned out that her country, Angola, lost to Portugal. Oh, the humanity. At least the Portuguese kids were in really good spirits today. Two of them were wearing their soccer jerseys in class (not part of the uniform) but I decided that I wouldn't fight that battle and let it go.

After school, a colleague and I wondered whether second semester marks were lower in World Cup years were lower. Wouldn't surprise me.

Anyhow, umm, maybe Poland will recover somehow. Guess I could always root for England... Or Australia.

Hmmm, so it's taken me 250+ blog posts to get to a sports-related post. It'll be a long time 'til the next one my friends. Maybe I'll save it up for if the Leafs ever make the playoffs... Ha-ha.

Countdown update: 4 more days of classes.

ps Actually, I may have done something sports related when the Olympics were on. Perhaps I save it for big sports thingys that are every four years.

We will still need a song to carry us away...

And another weekend has almost bitten the dust. However, this is the last weekend where I'll feel the typical Sunday night blues (and they're not so bad tonight). Next week is the last week of classes and then bam! It's exam week. Exam week is a breeze when you're on the teaching side of the desk. The kids write 'em, they leave, I mark 'em, the end. Easy days for me.

Anyhow, this was a pretty fabulous weekend. The highlight was yesterday, which culminated in my looooooooooong awaited Hawksley Workman concert at Massey Hall. This thing was announced like last August and it was supposed to be on March 25th, but poor Hawksley got sick and it was postponed.

One of my oldest friends in the world introduced me to Hawksely, hence I started to refer to her as Becksley some years back. Becksley lives in London (Ontario, that is) and she and her bf came up for the concert. We met up and went for supper before the show. It turns out that Becksley reads my blog all the time. Every time I started telling her a story, I would remember that she probably knew all about it and read about it on my blog. It took me awhile to think of things to talk about. Soooo, I guess I should avoid actually promoting my blog to my friends so that I'm not completely repetitive in person...

After dinner, we met up with Becca T and the four of us made our way to Massey Hall. Becca T and I were sitting apart from Becksley and bf, but we were in waving distance.

Hawksley was AMAZING. I tabulated that this was my seventh time seeing him live and he never fails to rock my socks off. He started out with some stuff from the new CD but spent most of his time playing his older stuff. It was great. I have to admit, since I hadn't seen him in almost 2 years, I forgot how good he is live and how great his songs are.

I think it was an extra-awesome show because he was psyched to be playing Massey Hall. He played 4 encores. My highlight was during encore #1 (I think) when he came out with his banjo and sat at the front of the stage, away from the microphones, and led the crowd in a sing along of "We will still need a song".

So, the show was definitely the highlight of my weekend. Today was spent procrastinating and doing a bit of work. I think this will be pretty a pretty busy week for me because I have to finish any stray marking, get the rest of my term marks in, go to staff meeting and retirement parties and do a bunch of errands to get ready for my friend’s wedding next weekend.

Hope you all have a super week!

Is it any wonder I'm tired?

Two things made me laugh today. Well, probably more than two, but these are the ones that I deemed blog-worthy.

Funny Item #1 - I got my hair cut exactly 2 weeks ago. Today I got 4 compliments from coworkers on my hair. Comments in the vein of "Did you just get your hair cut? It looks good." I attribute the lateness of the comments to one of three things:

a) Teachers tend to rush around too much and notice things late.

b) It's a really solitary profession -- you really don't spend much time with your coworkers.

or: c) The hair looked horrible when it was first cut. It was too short. It's grown a bit and looks much cuter now.

Funny Item #2 - I was card shopping for a birthday card, a wedding card and a fathers' day card. (Note: I am not usually this early with buying fathers' day cards but there was a buy 3 cards get 3 free sale so I figured it was a good time to get myself prepared). One fathers' day card caught my eye. It went along the lines of:

"Hey Dad! Some guy told me that you have a drinking problem and an anger management problem..."

Open card.

"So I hit him over the head with one of your empty whiskey bottles. Happy Fathers' Day!"

This made me laugh out loud. I was soooooo going to get it for my dad, being that he has a pretty sick and twisted sense of humour. Then I thought of my mother. Who would surely find the card distasteful. A few years ago my dad bought me a birthday card that went along the lines of "I didn't know what to get you for you birthday, so I stole you this card." She deemed this as a highly inappropriate card and got my dad in trouble. The card was confiscated and my father was sent to get a new card. She saved me the card so I could see the impropriety for myself. I was unaware of her rules for greeting cards before this incident.

Visions of this scene played through my head as I pictured myself giving my dad this card. He'd find this funny but I'd have to endure the wrath of my mother. The card was put back and exchanged for an inoffensive card with a joke about killing spiders. Gotta love the quirks of your family members, I suppose...

I'd say some more, but I'm very tired of typing because I just had a long MSN conversation with some friends and had to send out a bunch of emails regarding wedding presents, post-wedding brunches and more secret scrapbook projects. Plus, I'm gonna do a bit more typing 'cuz I have to catch up on my blog reading and commenting... I'll leave you with one last very important tidbit of info:

Countdown Update: 6 more days of classes!

I'm standing up there in a weakened state and it's not great.

Random assortment of today's thoughts and observations:

1) There are eight more days of classes left. Plus 9 days of exams and other assorted chores. But it's really those classes that I want to be done with. The kids are getting beyond restless. My period 4 class can't even focus on a movie for gosh's sakes! (Well, until I threaten them with the alternative of an assignment... then they shut up... luckily they were unaware that this assignment did not exist...)

2) There was an amusing subway conductor working on my way home from work. As the car was loading he announced "Don't hold the doors open please. People want to get home. Don't crowd the cars... I'm talking to you people in the first car. Don't be afraid to walk 20 feet." People on my car were cracking up.

3) All this coverage of terrorist plots in Toronto/Canada is rather unnerving.

4) Now that the heat wave is over, the air conditioner is working in my classroom and it's freezing. Oh well, I'd rather be too cold than hot.

5) I like lists.

6) Whoa. Apparently Brangelina got $20 million for baby pics. That's a lot of cash. They say they're giving it to charity.

7) Favourite line from the Colbert Report last night: "Stephen Colbert did not sell out. The world bought in to Stephen Colbert." And I also liked his gravitas contest with Stone Phillips. Not to mention that he yet again credited himself for Canada's shift to a right-leaning PM.

8) Today is day 2 of me procrastinating laundry. I find living in an apartment building really make laundry a chore that I put off.

9) I subscribe to one magazine: Chart. It's Canada's finest music magazine and I'd highly recommend it for its reviews, articles and snide remarks. I got my issue today with such illuminating articles such as "The 16 Commandments of Rock 'N Roll Fandom" and "16 Essential Hoser Records".

10) Gosh, it was hard to come up with 10 things to say today.

ps Looks like 06/06/06 went by without incident... I had a friend in high school who was nervous when 1998 started because 1998/3 = 666...

pps I get visitors to my blog through yahoo using the search "drunk chris ficus train". This amuses me.

These souvenirs betray you; absent warnings nailed to hydro poles.

Tomorrow I will be spending my day writing exams. So, having summarized the way my Sunday will be, I will do my weekend post in reverse chronological order.

I just got home from a Christine Fellows concert that I went to with Becca T and a couple of her friends. It was great. Not only does she have a quality first name, she's a fabulous artist. If you're into alterna-folk type music, you would really like her.

It was a really small show at the Rivoli and I really wish I'd remembered to bring my camera so I could post some pictures but unfortunatley, I am that forgetful. The show was unique because it had a multi-media portion; there was an artist who used an overhead projector and put up transparencies of work that illustrated the songs. It was a great show, and I think she's playing in Winnipeg on June 8th (hint hint to my Winnipeg reader).

(Insert sadness here - there's going to be a whole "From the 'Peg" festival at the Harbourfont in July. This will include The Weakerthans and Christine Fellows and a whole host of other cool artists, I'm sure. Guess who will be in England then? Gah. Could they not have scheduled this just a couple of days earlier so I could go? *sob*)

Back to the weekend... I managed to make the show after having dinner with my friend Flora in Whitby. She has her old English/History friends from teachers' college over each June for dinner and I get invited even though I'm a science girl. It was pretty fun, and I was rather sad I had to leave early, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to make her shows.

Friday night Becca T and I went to see The Break Up with Vaughniston or Vinnifer if you will. There were a few laughs, but I'd say it's a renter.

I saw a preview for the movie Snakes On A Plane and I kind of want to see it. It just makes me laugh too hard that they decided to make a movie about snakes on a plane and then decided to call it Snakes On A Plane. Bonus laugh: I guess there's a line from the movie that goes "There are mother-f-ing snakes on this mother-f-ing plane!" This kills me.

Well, that's my weekend in review. I don't really want to go to bed right now because it just means morning will come and I'll have to work all day. Hope the rest of you have much more relaxing Sundays that I will have.

Skinny boy, all bones no lies.

Wow... I just noticed that this is my 250th post. Neat.

Well, the heat is supposed to break tonight and that's all I care about right now. My school's been sweltering for the past three days. Can any crazy heat just hold off until the end of June?

Yesterday I bought the new Amy Millan solo CD. I like it.

Gosh TV is crap. My roommate is looking for something to watch and there's nothing.

This site amused me for a good half hour this evening.

I've been spending way too much time on celebrity gossip blogs. The madness must end. My fave is Pink Is The New Blog which is the first thing that I check when I get home. Even before my email and my own blog. Yeesh.

Well this has turned out to be quite the random post, hasn't it?

This weekend will be nice but there's a big of suckiness attached - exams are due on Monday. Have I started? No. Am I in a rush to start? No. I'm thinking that Sunday is going to be an exam-writing marathon.

I made the mistake of double-booking myself on Saturday night. I said I'd go to a dinner at my friend Flora's in Whitby plus to a Christine Fellows concert with Becca T. I think I'll be able to swing both. I really want to go the concert, but my friend scares me too much to cancel... (Plus, the guilt... oh, the guilt...)

Well, I think I'm just going to do some dishes and perhaps read for a bit and then hit the proverbial hay. Hope you all have a good rest of the week.

'Cuz big city life is fun.

What a day in Toronto. We had:

• a heat advisory (temperature of 33 right, humidex in the 40s -- look at my nearly naked weather pixie!)
• a smog advisory
• air quality is moderate to poor (they expect it to be poor tonight)
• a ''wildcat'' transit strike

What a fun day.

There were grumblings last night about the possibility of a strike but I think most people didn't think it would happen and were really unprepared. I made sure to line up my ride to work from a colleague last night just in case. We left super early (6:45 am) to beat the eventual mad rush.

My classes were really empty. Which was good because no additional body heat was needed in my classroom. It was soooooo hot. Plus, I'm on the third floor and we all know that hot air rises... I'm not looking forward to tomorrow and Wednesday when this heat wave continues.

Story of the day: one of my colleagues overheard a student signing in at the office during first period. He'd arrived late and the attendence secretary asked him "why are you late?" He told her he was late because the bus was running late. She looked at him and started to laugh and proceded to inform him of the TTC strike. Hmmm... guess whose "I'm late 'cuz of the bus" excuses aren't going to fly any more.

I got home really early. My colleagues and I decided to beat the rush home and left school right away. A weird feeling. Glad to be out of the oven. When I walked into my super cool air conditioned apartment I felt like singing the hallelujah chorus.

Tonight I plan on going to the Second Cup or Starbucks and getting a super cool chilled coffee beverage and finishing the marking I've been avoiding. Good times.

Oh yeah, and the strike's been declared over. Back to normal tomorrow. Except for the crazy hot weather that is.

Memory will rust and erode into lists.

Awhile ago I blogged about how my best friend in high school is getting married in June, and how it was a total surreal experience just mailing out the reply.

While, the surrealness continues. Today was her wedding shower.

This meant I took the good old train home to Stratford for the event.

A bit of history: I was part of a group of nine girls in high school and we still keep in touch. It's now been almost 10 years since we've graduated. Anyway, we've spent the last couple of weeks trying to organize stuff together to make a scrapbook for Mel who is the girl getting married in June.

Four of us showed up at my friend Teresa's place on Saturday night and we had a super scrapping time. Oh, how my scrapper blog friends would be proud of me, I thought. I'd never really done the scrapbook thing before. Anyhow, we got a book of 19 pages called "Memories of Mel" finished in 4 hours. And, dare I say, it rocked. It was hard to give it up today.

However, I did take a picture of each page (mostly for Sandee, since she was stuck in North Bay). I'll show you all my favourite page that I did. It tells the story of this really really bad party Mel once dragged us too. We didn't have any pictures, but the story is hilarious.


So the scrapping was really fun. I think I may have to take up this hobby for the summer.

Today was the shower. And boy, it was soooooooooo weird to be back at my friend's parents' house. I practically lived there in high school. I haven't been there in probably 8 years. I also saw her little sister, who was probably 10-ish the last time I saw her and is now 18. She still greeted me in the same way: "Do you remember when you babysat us and you showed us that Frog Prince video from the 70s? That was so fun!"

Mel's stepmom was a riot too. I'd forgotten about how she used to call us "fridge raiders" (in all honesty, we raided the liquor cabinet way more than the fridge) and the little ratbags and all sorts of other terms of endearment.

Eight of the nine of us showed up. It was so nice being together again and catching up and laughing about old memories. The nicest thing was when one of Mel's stepmom's friends turned around to us and said "I just love watching you girls. You give me such a good feeling."

I get such a good feeling from just being with my old pals.

Anyhow, enough with the sap. Mel's stepmom makes a mighty strong drink and I got well, a little tipsy. After the shower, I had to drop by my parents' to grab my stuff. Yeesh, I haven't come home drunk from Mel's in a long time like that. I faked sober for old time's sake.

Lucky for me, I had a car ride back to Kitchener with my pal Jo and then a bus ride back to Toronto.

Hope you all have super weeks!

Don't wait to lay your armour down...

I'm relaxing by listening to the new Dashboard Confessional song "Don't Wait". So summery. So fun. I think I'm in love. I got my tickets for Dashboard and City & Colour at the Molson Ampitheatre on June 30th. I'm psyched. What a way to celebrate the end of a school year!

So things are pretty much crazy busy right now. Tonight I had to travel way across the city on a bus for a work-related meeting. I tend to forget how big this city is. Just got home and vegging in front of the tv.

Tomorrow night, I'm going to my school's musical. I think it's gonna be good. A good third of my period 1 class is involved, so it'll be fun to watch. Plus I'll get to see those sets I helped paint in action! However, I'm prolly gonna stick around school until the show in the evening, so it will be a long day.

On Friday, I'm hopping on the train to Stratford. Sunday is my friend Mel's wedding shower. It should be lots of fun. I'm really looking forward to spending the weekend at home and recharging. Gee, 2 days back at work and I already need recharging.

Oh look! Blogger's being cooperative and allowing me to post some pics from my weekend trip!

Well, I may catch you on the other side of the weekend. Don't think I'll have time for blogging until then.

ps Congrats to my dear friend Sandee on getting into teachers' college!

All right, I can say what you want me to.

Ahh... I think I'm totally refreshed and rejuvinated thanks to the fabulous long weekend that I had. I give it a day, and I'll be back to my usual stressed and hurried self.

Here's a run down of the weekend's activities:

Friday - Caught Go-Train to Burlington where my friend/old roommate Jeanine picked us up. We drove to her place, dropped off her stuff and headed to Niagara Falls to stand in the cold rain and watch fireworks over the falls. Then we headed to the new casino where I lost a little bit of money and Becca T won a little bit of money.

Saturday - Slept in a little, brunched and then headed again to Niagara Falls. Walked around for a bit and decided our corny Niagara Falls activity would be to go on the Maid of the Mist which neither Becca T nor I had been on since our childhoods. It was a little cold, very wet, but a fun time. Thank goodness for disposable ponchos.

We took a break and did a little bit of browsing in stores. Becca T used her casino winnings to buy us each a very large, very very tasty chocolate covered strawberry at the Hershey's store. Then we hit the factory outlet mall (the only store that actually had good prices was The Body Shop) and went out for supper. We returned to Jeanine's place, met up with her friend, went out for ice cream and then watched a super cheesy movie (The Perfect Man with Hillary Duff and Heather Locklear).

Sunday - Slept in again and brunched again. Drove around the country and saw tonnes of vineyards, orchards and Brock's monument. Went to Port Dalhousie where they have a really old caroursel that you can ride for a nickel. Jeanine was nice enough to treat us each to a ride. It was fun. We wanted to walk along the beach there but it was far too cold and windy.

We then drove to Niagara-on-the-Lake (Stratford's main competition in the area of tourist town with shopping a festival... I always feel like a traitor going there) and looked around the stores.

Caught the train back to TO. Becca T came over here to watch the season finale of Desperate Housewives. Sunday shows are so much better when you can drink while watching them not having to worry about work on Monday.

Today - Main activity was going to see The Da Vinci Code. The critics are right. It's rather boring. Stick with the book.

Now, I'm trying to post pictures of my weekend but blogger's being muchos unco-operative. Stay tuned.

Happy May 2-4!

I was having such a good day today until about halfway through period 4. My morning classes were good, and then my period 4 class was being good. But then, I had to deal with 3 kids who were caught skipping (honestly, if you're going to cut class, leave the building so you don't get caught... yeesh) and my necklace broke. I managed to save half of the beads but many rolled away. Sigh.

However, all of these calamaties are made up for by the fact that, yes, it is a long weekend. Woo! I'm in the middle of packing my stuff for my mini-trip to visit an old roommate in the Niagara area. A change of scenery will be nice.

Hope you all have great weekends. Thanks for your comments on my previous post. By the way, the albums were in no particular order - just more or less the order in which I thought of them.

Ciao!

10 albums...

Last week, while I was having blogger's block, I made a list of 10 albums that are really important to me thinking that I could make a post out of that sometime. Well sometime is here. I may not listen to some of these a heck of a lot any more, but they always remind me of a certain time or place. I don't know what to call them. Influential? Favourite? Inspiring? Instrumental? (Ix-nay on that adjective - all of them have lyrics...) Ummm, for lack of a satisfactory term, I'll just call them special.

Anyhow, here is a list of 10 albums that are special to me:

1) The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner - Ben Folds Five

This album was released on the last day of my first year of university. So, it kind of marks a milestone for me: the end of my hardest year of university. More importantly, I listened to it constantly that summer. My Nana was dying of cancer that year, and it brings me back to frequently making the trip to visit her in the hospital in Sarnia with my Dad. The song "Magic" was eerily appropriate for that experience. It's about coming to terms with someone you love dying of illness and being glad that they are finally out of pain. I love that song so much, and it makes me happy and sad to think about my Nana who was one of the most special people to me ever.

2) (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves - Hawksley Workman

I decided to skip an evening stats class to go to the CD release party for this CD. Best reason to skip class ever. The concert was Hawksley, his pianist Mr. Lonely, and a string quartet. It was one of the most amazing shows that I'd ever seen and sort of started the beginning of me going to lots of small concerts in clubs and discovering little known artists.

3) Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette

Ahh, to be a 16 year old girl again. This CD was all the rage when a lot of my friends were getting their driver's licenses. We'd listen to this CD while going on roadtrips and sing along with every song. Bonus fun: acting out the Ironic video and pretending to be the various Alanises in the car. However, I never would hang out the window if I was shotgun. That's just not me.

4) Left & Leaving - The Weakerthans

This CD got me started on my favourite band of all-time. I love this album for so many reasons. I can identify with the Weakerthans' songs because many of them have the theme of having a love/hate relationship with your hometown. I always have to listen to the song "Left & Leaving" when I'm on way to visit Stratford. My city's still breathing, but barely, it's true.

5) Parachutes - Coldplay

Whenever I hear any song from Parachutes, I think about Harry Potter. For Christmas 2000, I got this CD plus the first 4 Harry Potter books. I listened to this CD as I read through them, and Coldplay and Harry Potter are forever linked in my mind.

6) Tranatlanticism - Death Cab for Cutie

This CD rocks. I got it for Christmas from my dear friend Becca T the year that I was up north. It's just so sweeping and grand. It was a great album to have while dealing with challenging times. And the title track is to die for.

7) Pretty Together - Sloan

I wasn't much of a Sloan fan until this album came out. For some reason (was it fate?), Becca T and I kept constantly getting free tickets to Sloan concerts and running into Sloan playing at various places while they were promoting this album. After the third performance, we were hooked and went through a summer of Sloan obsession. I'm talking Sloan road-trips and even making Sloan crafts. Don't ask. But if it feels good, do it, right?

8) Pinkerton - Weezer

El Scorcho is one of my favourite songs of all times. My roommate and I knew that we'd get along when we discovered that we both love this song. Pinkerton is another one of those albums that remind me of high school. I remember getting in trouble for singing El Scorcho too loudly in the library and my friend Sandra hating me for singing that song which made me sing it more. The rest of the album's good too.

9) You Were Here - Sarah Harmer

I love this album. I'm surprised that I haven't worn out my copy of it. (Can you wear out a CD?) It makes me mad to see this CD on the cheap rack at many stores. It's worth so much more, dammit!

10) Set Yourself on Fire - Stars

Last night I was reading my blog entries from a year ago and I noticed that I'd bought this album last May. I can't believe I've had it for a year! It still seems so new and exciting to me, which testifies to its excellence. I love it all, but my favourite songs are Your Ex-Lover is Dead and Reunion which are respecitively numbers 1 and 3 of my most-listened to songs on my iPod. Oh, can't Stars come play again soon?

Sooooo, what are some albums that are special to you?

ps I actually spell-checked my entry for once. Can you believe that Blogger's built-in spell-checker does not have the word blog in it? Too funny.

Then what could I say that would sound right?

Two days down, 3 to go before the bliss of a long weekend. My plans: Becca T and I are going to visit our old roommate in the Niagara area for a couple days. Perhaps hang out in Niagara Falls, do some shopping, see a movie, whatevs. Should be fun.

Update on last week's fire: it was caused by someone on a higher floor dropping a lit cigarette off of their balcony. Idiots. The poor people whose apartment it was - I hope it's less damaged than it looks.

Today's my mom's birthday! Happy Birthday Mom!

Oh - my flight and everything for my trip to England/Wales/Ireland are all booked and deposits are down. I'm so excited. I leave on July 28th and will be back on August 7th. I can't wait.

Lovin' my 60s cover CD by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs.

I'm addicted to the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series. I'm currently reading the fourth book. It makes me want to go to Botswana or someplace else in Africa. Perhaps that can be my 2008 summer vacation. (2007 will be British Columbia for my roomie's wedding.)

Hmmm, I think that's all the randomness that I have for today. Gotta go clean the kitchen. Blah. I wish the dishes were enchanted to wash themselves like in Harry Potter.

I see the rain again; I'll take the blame again.

Weird things that went through my head today:

- You could save a lot of money if you decided to celebrate all of your holidays a couple of days late. I was inspired by this latest money saving scheme when I saw Mothers' Day cupcakes on sale at the grocery store for a whopping $0.20 off.

- How the hell did I become a "grown-up"? This question passed through my head as I stood in line to buy a stamp for my mom's birthday card. I don't know why this task made me feel weird and grown-up but it did. Don't you sometimes look at your life and feel like you're playing grown-up? I constantly do.

- Ye gods: the 90s weren't as stylin' as I thought they were. This thought passed through my mind as I skimmed through a 1995 yearbook as I was making copies on the slow-as-death copier in the staffroom. I was in high school in 1995 and I swear I was far more fashionable than those in that yearbook. Hmmm, maybe in the 90s Stratford was the style mecca that I always assumed Toronto was.

- I'd kill to travel back through time and be back in high school for a couple of days. I really think that it would provide me with some kickass professional development. Much more useful than the workshops etc. that I have to go to now.

- Now that I'm a teacher, I do not want to listen to the same music as my students. Ick. That stuff sucks. It seems like it was just yesterday that I felt the opposite way; I did not want to listen to the same stuff as adults did.

Okay, that's all the weird thoughts for now. Here's a totally normal one: thank goodness Monday's over! It's all downhill (in a good way) from here!

Look up, rain is falling, looks like love.

Apparently I've been hit with a bit of blogger's block, if there is such a thing. I started a few posts last week but they went nowhere. They just seemed super boring and rambling, so I just deleted them. Even on Wednesday when there was tonnes of excitement (i.e. the fire), I couldn't come up with much (see short post below).

Sooo, in an attempt to break my blogger's block, I'm going to try and give y'all a rundown of my weekend:

1) On Friday after school, I hit a travel agency to figure out some stuff about the trip I'm planning to go on this summer with my friend Flora (who also went to Oz with me). We're going a tour of England/Wales/Ireland. Anyhow, I just gotta go in on Monday and put down a deposit on the thing. So it's pretty much a done deal. Britain, here I come (well, at the end of July).

2) Friday night I went to my friends Jon and Ali's place to hang out with old university buddies. My friend Gloria has been working in New Zealand for awhile (maybe like 2 years) and is back for three weeks. We caught up and played a loooooooooooong game of 90s trivial pursuit. Fun times.

3) Saturday I just couldn't get motivated to do much. I ended up doing laundry (finally) and watching a crappy movie (Rumour Has It with Jennifer Aniston et al.). Meh.

4) Today I went shopping. Again. At the Eaton Centre. Fourth weekend in a row. It was super necessary though because I needed a new outfit for my friend's wedding in June. I actually bought the very first thing I tried on. Talk about efficiency. But, I swear that I can't go shopping next weekend. But d'oh! I'm supposed to be spending time with Becca T and our old roommate Jeanine, which probably means we'll go shopping. It's hard to not go shopping when social time with female friends (and sometimes the right male ones) invovles shopping. Why is it such a fun activity?

5) I also picked up a new CD. It's called "Under the Covers Vol. 1" and it's by Sid n Susie (aka Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs). It's a bunch of 60s covers and it's super fun. I'm grooving in my room to it right now.

Sooooo, that was my weekend. Sigh. Went by too quickly, as usual. But... this is the last week of school until the long weekend, so things are looking up.

Tonight is the season finale of Survivor, so I have a long date with my TV. Have a great week!

What could you both possibly share (other than the colour of your hair)?

Well, there was a fire on the third floor of my building. Luckily I live on the 27th floor - far, far away from any smoke or fire. The unit that was burned is just above the main entrance of my building. It's totally burned out (all blackened inside with broken windows) and the balcony of the apartment above is all black.

After we were given the all clear, they had problems turning off the alarm, so I ended up going for a walk instead of staying at home. The alarm is freaking loud and I was already agitated enough.

Needless to say my plan of doing laundry and watching tv did not happen.

Tomorrow is another night I suppose.

I

I stole this from Guggenflurgen.

I AM feeling the Sunday night blues.
I WANT to go on a vacation.
I WISH it was June already.
I HATE waking up early in the morning.
I MISS my university days.
I FEAR the death of my parents.
I HEAR the Weakerthans on my iPod.
I WONDER what my life will be like in 5 years.
I REGRET sleeping in today.
I AM NOT a morning person.
I DANCE when I’ve had something to drink.
I SING off key.
I CRY during the series finale of “Sex and the City”.
I AM NOT ALWAYS in a good mood, although I act like it most of the time.
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS quality hand-knit scarves.
I WRITE tests and blog posts.
I CONFUSE my students sometimes.
I NEED a long weekend.
I SHOULD eat more veggies.
I START lots of Sudokus.
I FINISH mainly the easy ones.

Bonus: Here are some I-songs from my iPod (a la Lea's blog awhile ago):

I Am Aglow - Sarah Harmer
I Am Missing - Dashboard Confessional
I Believe in A Thing Called Love - The Darkness
I Can Feel It - Sloan
I Don't Know What It Is - Rufus Wainwright
I Don't Like Mondays - Tori Amos
I Drive Alone - Esthero
I Fought the Law - Green Day
I Hate My Generation - Sloan
I Know I Know I Know - Tegan & Sara
I Never - Rilo Kiley
I Really Want to Help You - Cuff the Duke
I Should Have Been Watching You - Hayden
I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
I.O.U. - Metric

I've made it, my dear, face it, I still kiss the darkness.

Thanks to everyone's suggestions to help me with my musical ennui... I'm going to have to write down a list and take it with me to HMV or whatever other store I wander into this weekend and make some frivolous impulse purchases.

Although... I did manage to pass my little phase by listening to some old stuff I have listened to in awhile. Danny Michel I heart you, and I really hope I can made his CD release show in June, even though it's the day before my friend's wedding. Hmmm... nothing wrong with a sleepy wedding guest, right?

I thought there weren't very many good CDs coming out soon, but I was wrong. I've got Amy Millan's (from Stars) solo CD coming out at the end of May, and new Danny Michel and Dashboard Confessional in June. Perhaps music wasn't getting as stagnant as I feared.

Becca T and I tried to see "Akeelah and the Spelling Bee" yet again tonight. We were going to see it last weekend but then she got a little overwhelmed with work and postponed our outing. Anyway, there were no times that fit with our schedules tonight, so we saw "American Dreamz" instead. Meh. It was all right. A renter, I'd say.

Here are some pictures that I took around town a couple of weekends ago when it was raining like the dickens. I love the few short weeks when trees are in bloom, and I came across some vandalism on a mailbox that, ummm, I didn't really disagree with.





Anyhow, hope you all enjoy your weekend!

ps My real-life friend Jo has started her own blog, since she loves mine and Sandee's so. Check it out and harass her into keeping it up. Also, her spelling's atrocious, so entertainment is guaranteed. ;) She's gonna kill me for saying that but... ummm... I just can't not. She knows I love her.

I should be sleeping but...

If you have not looked at my previous post, go look at it, and then read the next paragraph...

Alright some of you are much too good. I stared at that damned triangle for 10 minutes for me to see that it read "Paris in the the spring" and not just "Paris in the spring". Most people look at things as a whole, you know - the Gestalt prinicple, and don't notice the extra "the". If you did notice the extra "the" it means you pay attention to detail and should consider a career in proofreading.

Honesltly though, I recommend writing that little puzzle on a piece of paper and showing it to people and then yelling "wrong!" whey they read it as "Paris in the spring". Then watch them puzzle away at it for awhile. It's really good fun and perhaps works better in real life as opposed to in blogland.

Okay, so that was the first reason for today's double post.

Second reason = I think I'm experienceing musical ennui. HELP!!!!! I'm feeling a bit bored with the 2100 or so songs on my iPod. Normally when this happens, I can think some new stuff to aquire but I'm fresh out of ideas. I can't even think of anything new that I'm remotely interested in right now. Soooooooooo, any suggestions? Please, please, please help!!! I'm in danger of overplaying a lot of my current faves!

It doesn't help that there are not a whole lot of new CDs that I'm looking forward to. My dear Danny Michel is coming out with a new disc in June (and playing a CD release party in TO! Yay!) but, as you know, June is a looooooooooong time away, especially for a girl in the education business. And other than that, everyone I love seems to be on some sort of hiatus.

Help me end my musical ennui!

Honey, I'm a roller concrete clover...

Right now my classroom is a mess because they are renovating two of the other science classrooms so all of their stuff has been boxed up and moved into mine. Mostly this situation is annoying due to all of the clutter, the fact that my room now seems half its size, the distraction that the extra stimuli has provided for the kids, and mostly because I'm tired of answering the "Miss, why are all these boxes in here?" question a bajillion times. (One kid gets bonus points for the comment "Gee Miss, they must love you and really want to keep you because they gave you all this stuff. Look - 3 new computers!")

There are also weird random objects that have been shoved into drawers. Yesterday I found this book published in 1960 called "Science Puzzles" and I flipped through it while the kids were writing a quiz.

I found the following puzzle that I have attempted to reproduce in MS Paint. All you have to do is read the words in the triangle below and tell me what it says.

So far I've shared it with all of my classes and lots of colleagues. No one can get the answer right away. It took me an embarassingly long time to figure it out. Let me know if you get it!

It's (or was) just another manic Monday...

It's my first 5 day week at school after 3 four day weeks (thank you Easter and PD day). Will I survive????

After today, and the crazy behaviour of my grade 9s to which I attribute to a chemical reaction between their hormones and this crazy delicious weather we've been having, I have my doubts.

Now that it's May, I have to repeat myself a minimum of 27 times for all 28 of my grade 9s to catch onto the most basic of things (eg: do the questions on the handout I just gave you).

Oh, but I'm not giving them enough credit. According to their math teacher, they retained one thing from my class this morning. Apparently they corrected her when she mentioned they have 8 weeks of school left. She was met with a resounding "No! Ms W said we only have 7 weeks left." Not that I'm counting or anything.

Today brings to an end the grade 9 biology unit on reproduction since I started test review. And the award of question of the semester goes to:

"Miss, why are pregnant women so good looking?"

After having to pick myself off the floor from laughing, I made the kid feel a bit better by saying "I think you're referring to the healthy glow that is commonly attributed to pregnant women. Interesting question.."

I tell you, I'm looking forward to the relative safety of the electricity unit. Although, they still have two work periods to finish their project on reproductive technology, which was the catalyst for the winner of the question of last semester: "Miss, is ecstasy a fertility drug?"

Okay, well, I'm going to brave this beautiful weather to make a trip to Starbucks and get a tasty frozen coffee beverage. Or maybe the Second Cup. Hmmmm, decisions, decisions. Then I'll attack the pile of marking that I avoided this weekend. Have a happy Tuesday!

Now this romantic duels into the streets, bon appetit, he's eating me alive.

I was chatting with my dear friend Sandee a few days ago and she'd pointed out that she'd seen a music post awhile ago and was shocked that I had never completed it myself. I'd told her that I'd get to it on a rainy day. Well, it's not rainy today (that was last weekend) but I really don't have much else to say, so here it is (stolen from Scott's blog awhile back).

1. Name of band/artist: Tori Amos
2. Are you male or female? : Cornflake Girl
3. Describe yourself: Strange Little Girl
4. How do you feel about yourself?: Pretty Good Year
5. Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Icicle
6. Describe current girlfriend/boyfriend: I'm Not In Love
7. Describe where you want to be: Jamaica Inn
8. Describe how you live: Happy Phantom
9. Describe how you love: Spark
10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish?: Cars and Guitars
11. Share a few words of Wisdom: The Power of Orange Knickers
12. Now say goodbye: Goodbye Pisces

Okay, Tori's got a song called "Hoochie Woman" which would have been totally hilarious to throw in somewhere, but alas, a hoochie woman I am not.

So far this weekend's been pretty productive. I did laundry last night after school then went out for drinks with Becca T. Today I got up early and did some shopping. Last weekend, I bought myself the Roots purse that I'd been lusting over for months (thank you Revenue Canada for some money for that). Last night I walked by a Roots and they had special sale this weekend where everything is 25% off. Grrr. So I went back and had the price adjusted (woo!) and bought a cool necklace. I also picked up some cool new sunglasses, new jeans and a new shirt while shopping. Then I realized that I haven't had a weekend in a looooooooong time that hasn't involved shopping. So my goal next weekend is to *not* go shopping. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Tonight Becca T and I are gonna catch "Akeelah and the Bee". (Victims of the current Starbucks advertising campaign for this movie? Perhaps.)

Alright, I'm hungry. Supper time. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

This summer I'm going to get us a motorbike...

Tonight I had parent-teacher interviews aka the longest day of the year. Thankfully all were pretty good. My interviews fell into three categories:
a) Your son/daughter is fabulous.
b) Your son/daughter is fabulous but needs to study more.
c) Your son/daughter is a piece of work.

Usually the parents of letter c kids tend to stay at home, but I did get to talk to a few of them, and I'm hoping that they'll upgrade to letter b by the end of the semester.

The style nowadays is that the kid will often come along with the parents to the interview. I actually like this but one of the dangers is that there are sometimes tears (usually from boys believe it or not). I had one kid who looked like he was going to cry, but I think it was more from the stress of other interview and not from me because I'd classified him under category b and his dad had said "finally, some good news!" when I'd spoken about his son.

Tomorrow is a PD day and I get to sleep in. Hence I'm blogging so late.

When I got home from work tonight, my roommate and I had a discussion about my dichotomous nature. Here are some of the many dichotomies that make up this blogger:

- I'm hard-working (at work) yet lazy (mainly that I'm really good at putting off housework)
- I'm girlie (I like pink and own a surprising amount of makeup) yet not (I don't scream much and I'm not overly touchy or mushy)
- I'm quiet (around people I don't know) yet loud (around people I do know -- in fact if you get to know me, I don't shut up)
- I'm cool (see my tastes in music) yet geeky (although they say geek is the new chic)

We talked about some more but then she offered me some wine so I'm forgetting the rest.

Yay for the upcoming weekend! Hope yours rocks.

ps Post title is from the song "Ilfracombe" by Hawksley Workman which I'm listening to right now. Only a month and a bit until that concert. Yeesh. I've been waiting forever!!

Time can take its toll on the best of us.

I just got back from doing something that should have been surreal, but wasn't really, which made it in fact kind of surreal. (That sentence makes complete sense in my head... apologies if it doesn't on screen.) My old best friend (circa grades 7-12) is getting married in June and I just dropped the RSVP in the mailbox.

Right now I'm feeling that odd sensation of wistfulness/melancholy that accompanies the realization of growing apart from someone who used to be very central in your life. A time when I totally appreciate the value of a blog for an outlet for my thought.

Mel and I became pretty good friends in grade 7; her dad was going through a divorce (his second) and at some point she moved a couple of blocks away from me. In grade 8 our relationship as best friends was cemented. Every day after school I'd hang out at our school where we'd gossip, attempt baking cookies, watch TV and movies and plot elaboarte pranks against our chauvinistic, inept grade 8 teacher (none of which were actually attempted).

High school started and we maintained our friendship and moved among different groups of friends together until we eventually found one that stuck (and is still stuck together today). We still had our after school and weekend rituals of spending a lot of time together and getting into enough trouble together. Wait? Isn't it only technically trouble if you get caught? Luckily, we didn't get caught doing 99% of the stupid crap that we pulled; which was good, since my mom probably wouldn't have let me pal around with her so much.

If I were to describe our relationship using a favourite biology term of mine, I would say it was a mutualism. She took advantage of my booksmarts and voice of common sense (which was really beneficial for her since her parents were frequently absent and I used to have a running tally of stupid things that I'd talked her out of); whereas I benefitted from her social capabilities.

Sending away the reply to her wedding has made me reflect a lot on our friendship. If you'd asked grade 10 or 11 me about her wedding, I would have assumed I'd have a big role and that I'd know her finace really well. Not so much in reality; I think I could count on one hand the times that I've met him.

We grew apart starting in grade 13 (the old Ontario school system used to have a grade 13 aka OAC... essentially univesity prep - we were weird... it's gone now). She was done with school since she didn't want to go to university and I was working hard taking my advanced sciences and maths. She met a guy at a bar and started to date him very seriously. They moved in together and got "engaged" pretty quickly (it was a long engagement that thankfully never went anywhere). Once I'd met him and spent a bit of time with him, I coined the nickname "The Devil" for him. He was seriously the worst human being I have ever met in my life. Anyway, not surprisingly a girl involved with The Devil loses track of her friends and by the time I was off to university we'd grown apart sizablely.

We drifted apart further during univesity. She started to rarely show for the semi-annual gatherings with our high school friends. She'd cancel most plans we had. If I called her she'd say she was busy and then never call me back. Finally, one day I just stopped calling her because being shafted so much by my old best friend stung too much.

Eventually she got rid of The Devil and began replying to group emails. She began making and keeping plans with our group of friends again. She has visited me a few times in Toronto. Often there are flashes of the easy going fun friendship we had, but the closeness is gone.

I remember what she told me the last time I saw her before I left for university. "You'll never have another friend like me again."

It was true.

Shuffle Time

Got this game from Aaron. All you do is put your iPod (or substitute) on shuffle and the following questions are answered for you by the song selection. Oh, and you are NOT allowed to skip by embarrassing songs. Okay, I'm getting nervous but here goes... I've got my iPod on shuffle are here are the results...

Will I get far in life?
Standard Lines – Dashboard Confessional

How do my friends see me?
Extraordinary Girl – Green Day (I knew I loved my friends!)

Where will I get married?
California – Rufus Wainwright (Oooh… sounds fun!)

What is my best friend’s theme song?
The Marquee and the Moon – Sloan (Ahhh! That works. Becca T loves the Sloan.)

What is the story of my life?
Strange Little Girl – Tori Amos (LOL)

What was high school like?
Mood Rings – Relient K (Had several of those in high school.)

How can I get ahead in life?
Hold On – Sarah McLachlan

What is the best thing about me?
Time of Our Lives – David Usher

How is today going to be?
2 for 1 (Part 2) – Christine Fellows (Does this mean I should go shopping?)

What is in store for this weekend?
The Masterplan – Oasis (Does this mean I should buckle down and plan some lessons?)

What song describes my parents?
River of Daughters – The Old Soul (But they only have one…)

My grandparents?
So Pure – Alanis Morissette

How is my life going?
Eight Easy Steps – Alanis Morissette

What song will they play at my funeral?
Dead Disco – Metric (LOL!! Yeah, my funeral’s gonna be funny in an ironic way.)

How does the world see me?
Just Tonight… - Jimmy Eat World

Will I have a happy life?
The Grace – Neverending White Light featuring Dallas Green

What do my friends really think of me?
Non-Believer – Joel Plaskett (Oh well. They still think I’m an extraordinary girl so whatevs.)

Do people secretly lust after me?
Hymn – Andy Stochansky (Huh? Guess not. Hymns are not written with the intent to inspire lust. Sigh.)

How can I make myself happy?
Nothingwrong – Jimmy Eat World

What should I do with my life?
The Best Deceptions – Dashboard Confessional (Okay, so does this mean I should go get a cute emo boyfriend, go on a trip, cheat on him and break his heart? 'Cause that's what the song's about. However, it sounds like a potentially fun plan.)

Will I ever have children?
Elgin Avenue – Danny Michel

What is some good advice?
Bells for Her – Tori Amos

What is my signature dancing song?
Here Nor There – Andy Stochansky (Ummm... totally not a dancing song. Which I guess works since I'm not a dancing girl.)

What do I think my current theme song is?
Calendar Girl – Stars (Cool. I can totally live with that.)

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Heroine – Wild Strawberries (I love people. They think I’m an extraordinary girl AND a heroine.)

What type of men/women do you like?
Nice To Be Out – Stereophonics (Nice to be out of what? Huh? I'm kind of scared here.)

What did you think of this meme?
Perfect Situation – Weezer

Well, I’d have to say that beats a magic eight ball. And, phew... No embarrassing songs were revealed.

Ba-ba-bup-ba-ba

Yay! The weekend! It's Friday night and I came home and had a big nap and then just went for a walk. Whoa. I'm a wild 'n crazy girl.

I was tired today after school because there was a lot of drama surrounding renovations that are happening in our deptarment. I hate when grownups act far more immature than teenagers.

Anyhow, it is the weekend! I must I must I must do my taxes this weekend and other assorted chores I've been putting off. Also, I think I'll indulge in a little retail therapy, which I seem to do far too often.

Have you all seen the Jack White coke ad? I haven't seen it on tv, but I had read a couple of places that it was good so I found it online today. You gotta hand it to Jack White - he can write a catchy tune, even if it is for the purposes of being a corporate schill. I'm not a huge White Stripes fan or anything, but I really do think he's an awesome songwriter. I love My Doorbell.

Have a great weekend!

Wow look at you now; flowers in the window; it's such a lovely day...

Holy beautiful weather Batman. It's so nice out! I'm soooo jealous of anyone I know who is still in university and summer is looming before them. Although, I'm not so envious of the fact they have to study for exams.

Today was a good day at work. Most days are. The worst that ever happens is that I get frustrated at lazy teenagers but there are enough nice hardworking ones to buffer that frustration. Today I had a healthy mix of frustration and the happy opposite of frustration so it's all good. Luckily, I end up laughing at the frustrations because something lightens them somehow. Case in point: today I booted a kid out of my class and gave him a lecture in the hall. A student who I taught last year, who would look rather large and menacing looking to the kid I was lecturing, was passing by and leered at the kid and said, in a rather menancing tone, "You'd better listen to her." I had to try hard not to laugh and resume my stern lecture.

Today was a happy flower day for me; hence the post title from the super happy springy Travis song Flowers in the Window (suggested download of the day). I brought in some mini daffodils for my period 1 class to examine. I felt guilty this morning as I was bringing the plants to school since I was essentially bringing them to meet a gruesome, but educational, death at the hands of grade 9s. However, we didn't use as many flowers as I thought we would, so now I have some daffodils in my classroom. I'll have to put a kid in charge of watering them so that they don't meet the ill fate of the ivy plants I had last semester.

In other flower news, my fabulous roommate has planted some flowers in windowboxes on our balcony. They look so beautiful and I've been meaning to take a picture. Here are a couple plus a depressing shot of my gardening attempts. Oh, a word from my roommate: the tulips are actually dying a bit now and aren't at their most beautiful.

From top to bottom:

- a view of the windowboxes
- tulips in the foreground; view of lake in background... I doubt I'll ever have an apartment with such an awesome view again
- the remnants of my feeble attempt at horticulture. This is the ficus plant that I got mad at and banished onto the balcony because it was dropping too many leaves on the floor. I've killed several other plants since then. There is nothing slightly green about my thumbs.

Well, I'm going to enjoy the rest of the lovely evening and go for a walk and maybe get a coffee (decaf at this time of night)!

My city's still breathing but barely it's true.

Oh, the sadness that hits me at the end of a long weekend. The bright side: next week only has 4 school days. And, the next week is another four day week because we get a PD day. Which means that I have to go to work, but there is no planning or kids to worry about which makes it almost a day off.

Anyhow, I've just finished typing out overhead notes for a thrilling lesson on sexual reproduction in animals and plants (oh, I dread the questions that I'll have to deal with when I bring up the subject of hermaphrodites ). My old crappy overhead finally broke and I got a new one last week. The old one was so bad that I never used it. And, you cannot get something replaced on the basis it is virtually unusable. It's gotta be completely unusable. Finally it completely broke and I got a new one. I'm into overhead overdrive now. I'm enjoying the reduction of chalk on my pants.

Anyway, I had an enjoyable time at home. On Friday night, I met up with Sandee and the gang (my new blog name for my high school friends - gives you guys a point of reference). Some good gossip was shared. The rest of the weekend was spent with my family. I saw some movies with the 'rents (Cinderella Man and Good Night, and Good Luck). I also actually took some walks around town and got some pictures of Stratford. Here they are:






From top to bottom:
- the court house
- one of the many trees that is now practically growing in the river due to erosion
- the Festival Theatre
- crooked picture of the city's "skyline" (guess you could call it that) complete with swans on the river
- a swan cooperatively posing for a picture - they're like typical models: all hissy and ill-tempered until you put a camera on them (yes, swans hiss)

Well, time for bed. Hope you all have a great week!

Lost out on this highway, these high beams have blinded me.

I am forever grateful that this is a long weekend. I couldn't have possibly taken another day.

Last night was the Matt Good concert that I had practically forgotten about in the insanity of the stuff going on this week (namely getting my marks/comments in for report cards). The concert was awesome. The opening artist, Melissa McClelland, was quite good. Matt played for a really long time which was beyond great. Here are some pictures of the show:





From top to bottom:
- far away stage shot
- zoom lenses are great
- not using a flash makes for a cool effect
- encore where Matt covered NIN's Hurt with Melissa McClelland and Luke Doucet

Song that I was psyched to hear = Indestructible. I actually did not like MGB until that song came out and then I got Underdogs and fell in love. I equate that CD with my first year of university. When I hear it, I picture walking across Queen's Park in the spring, taking a nap after a bio lecture and studying for chemistry. (Whoa, wasn't I quite the wild child?)

I also really enjoyed hearing Better Man, which is the hidden track on White Rock 'n Roll Review. It totally goes with my newfound enjoyment of a lil' bit of country twang.

Soooo, today I was tired but I made it to school. As I was helping a student with math this morning, he pointed to the stamp on my hand and said "Miss, is that a tattoo?" I laughed as I said no.

"Did you go to a club then?"

"No, no, no. Just a concert."

Another student overheard me. "Miss! A concert on a Wednesday night! How irresponsible!" Love how they judge.

"No, it's not. I'm here and I'm teaching you, aren't I?" Although after this point the rest of the class turned into a discussion about tattoos.

After school, I had to finish our book club selection (The In-between world of Vikram Lall). I had 40 pages left to go and I'm sure you'll all be pleased that I got it done. Overall, it was a good book. It took me awhile to get into it but it really picked up after 100 pages or so. Only 2 of us actually had finished it but we managed to have a good book related discussion and the others are motivated to finish it.

I also found out that my old summer roommate/dear friend/book club member Ali is pregnant. It's her second child (the first was born in May). Wow.

Well, I'd better get to bed. I gotta wake up early, do some dishes and pack for my trip to Stratford for the long weekend. Happy Easter everyone. See you in awhile.

Now that we've met, we can only laugh at these regrets.

Here's proof that I may be losing my mind (taken from a phone conversation from Becca T):

Becca T: "So when's the concert tomorrow night?"
Me: "Huh?" pause "Oh my word - I totally forgot that Matthew Good is tomorrow night! AHHHH!!"

Yes, I actually totally forgot about the concert that I've been looking forward to for eons. I even had my Wednesday plans made: come home from work, clean floors and finish book club book just in time for Thursday's book club meeting. Ye Gods. I can't believe that I totally forgot.

Sooooooooo, anyhow thanks for all your wonderful haikus! You guys totally rock. At least I didn't forget that.

On the weekend I bought Neko Case's new CD "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" and I love it. My favourite song is "That Teenage Feeling" which has a line that I adore:

"And nothing comforts me the same
as my brave friend who says
I don't care if forever never comes
'cuz I'm holding out for that teenage feeling."

I love that part so much that I know that it starts at exactly 1 minute into the song. Anyhow, if you like your indie rock with a bit of twang and awesome vocals, get this CD.

On Thursday, my book club that consists of some friends and many a current/former roommate is meeting to discuss The In Between World of Vikram Lall. I had the hardest time getting into this book but now I'm really liking it. I'm on about page 250 with 150 pages to go. Can I get it finished? I have faith in me.

My other book club, the teacher book club at my school, is looking for a book to read over the summer holidays. Any suggestions? (It has to be fiction.)

Lost poetry

I just spent some time digging around my room searching for my favourite carrot cake recipe. (This is the one thing I bake -- it doesn't happen often. The search was brought on by the fact that my roommate just baked a delicious cake and I figure I'll have to repay her one day.) In my searches, I came across some rock star haikus that I wrote years ago; inspired by an article in Chart magazine. I just had to share some of these.

Matt once had a band
They broke up; now he's alone
With Rivers' glasses

David Usher drinks
Coffee from King Street Starbucks
We didn't see him

Much black eyeliner
Bazillions of records sold
Sings like Alanis

Summer approaches
Question remains unanswered
When are Sloan concerts?

Stupid computer haiku:

Want to check email
But modem will not respond
Restart computer

Annoying pet haiku:

My cat's loud meowing
Goes on and on constantly
Will she ever stop?

And yes, there's even a science haiku, proving that I'm truly a geek. Or, maybe it's just proof that I must have written these when I was in teachers' college and had the idea of cross cirricular connections shoved down my throat on a constant basis.

In the nucleus
Protons and neutrons are found
Electrons outside

Have a nice week!

ps I challenge you all to a haiku poetry contest in my comments. You know the rules - 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. Go!

Epilogue

When I finished teachers' college, I did not have an answer to the "what next?" question. Obviously, I knew that I wanted to teach, but I didn't know where. Should I stay in Toronto? (Could I afford to?) Branch out into the GTA? Maybe a move to Kitchener or London or some other southwestern Ontario town was in the works. I half heartedly applied to boards in the GTA and in Toronto but no one was biting. Despite rumours of a "teacher shortage" in Ontario (which was a total myth), most of my peers in teachers' college were in the same boat. Many of us had not been called for interviews, and quite a few of my classmates had taken positions in other countries.

Anyhow, I decided to move back in with my parents until I found something concrete. I began applying to some jobs on larks. I applied to a non-convential job on a whim; it was at an internet-based secondary school in a remote community in Northwestern Ontario. At the time, my pal Sandee was teaching in Northern Quebec and I figured that if she could handle it, maybe I could too.

Well, I actually got a call from the principal for this job and I was offered it because they really needed a math/science teacher. I had about a week to make up my mind and then a week to get packed up and go. It sounded like an adventure, and I felt I was in need of an adventure in my life, plus the pay was good. I consulted some friends, including Sandee, and my family and I decided why not, it'll only be for a year.

So, for 10 months of 2003/2004 I live in a small aborginal community in Northwestern Ontario. You could only reach the community by plane. Well, except for in a few months in the winter, when there was an ice road that connected the community to the nearest town. My experience there was a total challenge. It was a complete eye-opener. Conditions in communities like this are not good; poverty, unemployment, addiction, depression, violence, and sickness are just some of the problems that plagued the community. Many large families are packed in small houses. It's amazing that conditions like this are present in Canada. It's like a totally different world.

Even though it was hard, and completely eye-opening, I met some great people while I was there and was amazed by the strength of many of the community members. I learned a lot during those 8 months and I've learned not to take so much for granted. I taught 15 year olds who had been through more sorrow and hardships in their short lives than I could imagine going through in my entire life.

Anyhow, the reason why I'm talking about this today is because I called one of the teachers I worked with today to chat and see how she is doing. She is on her third year teaching in the community and I enjoy getting updates from her. Plus, I developed a bond with two of the teachers who were up there at the same time as I was (there were 4 of us in total - one was a nutjob), and it's important for me to keep in touch.

I got all of the updates from her today and there really wasn't too much good news. After the converstaion, I almost felt like my 8 months there was a book and what she told me today was like an epilogue, or like the screen that comes on after a movie telling you what happened to the characters after the story was finished.

I found out that the only student who stayed in my class for the entire school year had a baby in January. She'll be 18 this month. I wonder now if she'll even meet her goal of graduating high school... Her younger sister had a baby the next month. Their father had remarked to my friend "those girls really don't know much about being mothers."

There was a woman who was an assistant in my friend's classroom. During the time I was in the community, she left her abusive boyfriend, who was then kicked out of the community. The following year she moved to the city. I asked how she was doing and apparently she's back with the boyfriend and they are both drinking again. So are her two oldest sons, one who is 19 and the other would be in grade 9 now.

One of the staff members at the computer centre next door to me was about my age. He'd never had problems with alcohol but decided to take up drinking this year. The computer centre is now closed because the manager has left the community. I'm sure he would have been capable of the job, but they won't hire him until he quits.

There were some people who were still doing okay, so it wasn't all bad news. But those three cases have brought me down a bit. Today I have the familiar weight on my shoulders that I felt a lot during my time in that community. There are so many problems facing Aboriginal Canadians in communities like the one I taught in, and it's hard to say what should be done. All I know is that I'm far more aware of the reality than I used to be and I have a personal connection to the reality. Maybe if the rest of Canada was connected the problem, more could be done.

Some nights I have a hard time falling asleep thinking about what I left. Sometime it's because I'm laughing hard about some experiences (like sinking into snow that was hip deep, sinking into mud that was hip deep, bribing the school janitor with cigarettes to pick up literacy tests at the airport for me, riding around with my friend the policewoman "fighting crime" at 1 am) and other times because I'm haunted by them.

10 bits of randomness about my day

1) Every second Wednesday at our school is late start day where the kids come in an hour later and we have department meetings. I love late start because I don't have to rush in the morning and classes are shorter. Today was one of those days.

2) It's exactly one week until my Matt Good concert. Yay!

3) It's exactly one week until midterm marks are due. Eeep.

4) Therefore I stayed late at work today and threw my own marking party.

5) I had to grab a fruit plate for our staff book club meeting tomorrow (book was Freakonomics - I liked it) and "accidentally" bought a fun new necklace from the kiosk outside the grocery store. How I love random purchases.

6) When I woke up this morning there was snow on the ground. What the?

7) Hung out with Becca T this evening and played a fun card game called Phase 10 while having coffee. We're such nerds, but our awesome taste in music makes up for it.

8) Did laundry. One of the washers decided not to drain so I had to pick my wet laundry out of the cold water and put it in another machine and rewash it. Such fun.

9) Stayed up far too late writing this post.

10) So glad that 3/5 of the week is over.

Blog Word Cloud

Got this from Guggenflurgen. I love it - it's too fun! Everyone go here to make your own blog word cloud..

I love that australia, ben, summer, song, iPod, Toronto, concert, weekend and music all made my word cloud.

Less lovin' period (makes it look like I bitch about my period all the time -- not so, mainly I bitch about my period 4 classes), like (makes me seem like a valley girl), and mean (am I always complaining about mean things?).

However, I'd have to say that warts and all it's a fantabulously happy word cloud.

How geeky would I be to buy the tshirt? LOL!