Rooftops and Invitations

All right, there's a huge pile of dishes to be washed, laundry to be done, packing to start and errands to run. Sooooo, blogging time it is. I've decided to steal stuff from other blogs.

A) Cute Animal Quiz from Guggenflurgen:

You Are A: Duckling!

The cutest of the cute, these baby ducks are often spotted in the spring following closely behind their mother. As a duckling you will grow up quickly, becoming one of the adult ducks seen commonly in ponds and streams. Playful and timid, charming and vulnerable, ducklings are nature's very definition of innocence.

You were almost a: Lamb or a Bear Cub
You are least like a: Groundhog or a SquirrelWhat Cute Animal Are You?

B) 5 Things from Scott:

5 Things always in my purse/briefcase/backpack:

1. Ipod
2. Cell phone
3. Juicy Tube
4. Book
5. Gum

5 Things always in my wallet: (Remember, it's a Nightmare Before Christmas wallet)

1. My student card (for good luck)
2. Tonnes of cards (credit, debit, store points cards etc)
3. Concert ticket stubs
4. Lots of freakin' receipts that need to be removed and organized
5. A little bit of cash

5 Things always in my refrigerator:

1. Many bottles of salad dressing
2. An open bottle of wine (oh gosh, makes me sound like a wino -- in my defence, it's not necessarily my bottle, okay)
3. Yogurt
4. Something that needs to be thrown out
5. Ketchup

5 Things always in my closet:

1. That load of laundry that never gets done.
2. My Care Bear (shhhhhh)
3. Clothes that I keep meaning to donate to Salvation Army
4. A box full of old purses
5. Dust (one of my summer projects is to fix this)

5 Things always in my car: (Or things that end up in the 'rents' car when I borrow it)

1. Air Freshener thingy
2. Pennies
3. A pack of gum
4. An empy water bottle
5. Directions to someone's house

5 (or more) Things always on my desk: (at work - if I can still remember what it looks like)

1. Stickers, stickers, stickers
2. Stapler with coloured staples
3. My Oscar
4. Pile of marking
5. My collection of bottles that need to be brought downstairs to be recycled

Okay, now that I've procrastinated, I feel ready to be productive. Then I will reward myself with a trip to Starbucks. Woot.

Go put your records on, tell me your favourite song...

So I've decided to put off the computer purchase until after my trip to the old country. Much more logical, I think. Plus, sneaking into my roommate's room and using hers while she's at work is working quite well for me at the moment. (In my defence, she did say I could use it any time... To which I replied "What if I feel the need to blog at 3 am? Is that okay?") Anyway, I can feel slightly less stressed for awhile.

I'm feeling kind of sleepy from my lunch of chicken fajitas and mango margaritas.

Bought a new umbrella for my trip. Bring on your worst rain I say.

As I was walking down Bloor Street this aft, I saw a movie being filmed. They had all kinds of yellow cabs parked out front a store that were labelled "NYC Cabs". I wished I had my camera to take a picture, but of course I didn't. Then I remembered that I temporarily don't even have a computer to put my pics on anyway, so whatever.

I hadn't seen a movie being filmed in quite awhile. When I was in university, there were constantly movies being filmed on campus. Sometimes I'd be walking across campus and there'd be all kinds of horses and buggies and people dressed in clothes from the 1800s, and I felt like I'd travelled back through time (except for all of the cameras and whatnots). My favourite scene was when Becca T and I made a trip to a library whose sign was altered to say "Philadelphia Police Headquarters". We both started to fake-panic and wonder how the hell we ended up in Philly on our way to check email.

When my pal Becca T finished school and was in between jobs, she worked as an extra a couple of times. She had a stint as an extra at a lesbian party on Queer As Folk so I love to tease her about how she's not a lesbian in real life, but she's played one on TV.

Of course, all of this thinking about movies being filmed is reminding me of the episode of the Simpsons where the Radioactive Man movie is being filmed in Springfield. (The googles! They do nothing! <-- That line always goes through my head when I have to tell my students to wear goggles during chemistry experiments.) Perhaps I'll go watch that now. I love TV on DVD.

You can breathe but the air is running out on you.

I'm pretty sure that I know what my hell will look like. There will be an infinite array of computers and I will be given the task to determine which one to buy. Argh. I hate computer shopping so much. It's a horrible, horrible thing for an indecisive person like me to have to cope with.

Other than being haunted by the ghost of my dead laptop (I just had a fleeting temptation to say screw getting a new one and go demand my old old old old clunky desktop back from my aunt), life's grand. I had a good mini-vacay-from-summer-vacay-in-Toronto by crashing at my 'rents place in Stratford for a few days. I spent some time catching up with old friends and chilling and making a to-do list to complete before I head off on my trip.

As my dad was dropping me off at the train station this morning, he asked me when I was leaving for the old country. This made me laugh for a couple of reasons: a) it brings back fond memories of when my grandfather referred to Wales as the old country; and b) it made me think of the episode of the Simpsons where Grampa is reminiscing about the old country, but he forgets which one. I've decided to henceforth refer to my trip as my trip to the old country. (Did I mention my plane leaves THIS Friday night?)

I'm reading a hilarious book about the old country (albeit not my old country) - Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks (Hawks - not Tony Hawk the skateboarder). I've had it kicking around for years, and never actually read it. I decided that since I am going to be in Ireland in about a week, perhaps now would be the time to read it. It's feckin' funny. The author was bet 100 quid that he couldn't hitchhike the circumference of Ireland in one month with a fridge. I just finished the part where the fridge goes surfing. I totally recommened this book.

Tomorrow is lunch with my pal Flora who is making the trip to the old country with me. We will plan what we will do with our free time in London. All I know is she wants to shop. I am fine with this.

I think that after lunch, I may just bite the bullet and go buy the computer that I almost bought today before my indecisive nature took over and brought me home to do more research. The only way to end this madness is to buy a computer. Or maybe I'll convince myself to hold off until after I'm back from the old country. I'll keep you updated on my adventures from computer hell. (Thank God this happened during the summer, I suppose.)

Boo-urns.

On Monday at about 4:00 pm, my trusty laptop decided that it had had enough of this world. The last thing I typed on it was a message to Sandee - "sorry, having computer problems".

After what seemed like 2 hours on the phone with computer support people, it seems like the problem is with the motherboard, and doesn't seem to be worth fixing. At least the hard drive should be fine, and I shouldn't lose anything that I've neglected to backup. Sigh.

Soooo... looks like someone will be going laptop shopping. I guess it's fun, but I don't really feel like worrying about that right now. I think I'm going to wait until I'm back from Britain to deal with my computer difficulties.

Tonight I'm going to take the train to Stratford for a mini vacation there. I haven't been home yet this summer because I keep procrastinating... Blogging will be sporadic and done entirely from the quaintness of the local library.

Ciao.

Sleeping all day, staying up all night...

I had a fantabulous day despite the hot hot heat.

I woke up pretty early and had a leirsurely breakfast. And by leisurely, I mean it took me about two hours from start to finish. And no, I did not cook myself some gourmet meal, I'm talking an English muffin, an egg, strawberries, juice and coffee. As I dawdled, I questioned myself to how the hell was I able to wake up at 6:30 am and be out the door at 7:30 (at the absolute latest) a few short weeks earlier...

Today I caught a matinee of the excellent documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, thus continuing my weekend of eco-documentaries. It's a great comapanion piece to An Inconvinient Truth. It was very well done, and pretty fun. The movie starts with some background info about the electric cars that were developed and actually available to consumers in California in the late 1990s. Yeah, I didn't know about that either. We're talking zero emissions here. After the background, the movie goes through the evidence for all the different suspects in the style of a murder mystery. Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson (with a crazy beard) make appearances, not as suspects but as lovers of the car. Anyhow, I left the movie with a disdain for oil companies, car companies, and George W Bush. Well, I guess always had disdain for those things, but now more so. Go see this movie, or remember to rent it when its out on DVD. It's only playing in one theatre in Toronto, so I suppose if you're in a small town, you will be out of luck. Perhaps its release will expand.

On my way home from the movie, the freakin' subway had some sort of malfunction and stopped, so I had a bit of a hike home. Normally, I wouldn't care, but don't you love when these things happen on the hottest day of the year? At least I was carrying a bunch of groceries or something. That would have sucked.

When I got home, I turned on my trusty computer and saw my friend Mathew on MSN. He'd gotten free tickets to Edgefest II from work, but I had intially planned to go to Stratford this weekend so I'd declined. I've decided to postpone my visit until later in the week because I don't feel like leaving my air conditioner (there isn't one in my room back home), plus my dad is all grumpy because his shovel-foot is acting up. Anyhow, it turned out that Mat hadn't found a taker for the tickets, so I got to go to a spontaneous concert! We arrived in time for Hawthorne Heights (kind of screamy), The All-American Rejects (pretty good) and Yellowcard (quite entertaining as well). It was a great concert for a summer night, and being by the lake made it bit cooler. So yay for spontaneous free concerts!

Well, I should be off to bed soon. Tomorrow's task is to get some pounds and euros for my trip.

Happy Monday!

Can I Go Nowhere With You?

I've been hit with an insane thirst for knowledge. Thank goodness it came during summer vacay, when I actually have time to explore outside interests, as opposed to marking another project or planning a lesson on isotopes or linear equations or whatnot.

(Aside, I ran into a friend from teachers' college today. Teachers are frustrating people. We are the worst for talking about our jobs. Even on summer vacay.)

Back to my thrist for knowledge. I guess I developed it while I read Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky, which takes place during WWII. When it comes to history, I feel pretty un-learned. I did not take a history course past grade 9 (pile on the maths and sciences, I said). In university, I took a history of science course, Darwinism to be precise, but that doesn't count. I'm pretty much like Grampa Simpson, whose knowledge of history consists of what he's pieced together from sugar packets. My sugar packets are novels, memoirs, and movies. I've found that the best way for me to learn history is to trick myself into learning it through reading fiction/memoirs or watching a movie.

Of course this can be dangerous - what if the book isn't accurate? I read a novel about Anne Boleyn that was terribly inaccurate; however at least it sparked me to do the research to find out that it was indeed inaccurate...

So anyway, back to my summer quest for knowledge. Since I can't learn everything there is to know in a summer (or can I?) I've decided that this summer's topic will be WWII. (Anyone know any good books about WWII?? One that's a little more substantial than "WWII for Dummies" but not the tome of Weinburg's "A World At Arms"... I picked up that thing in a bookstore and could barely lift the freaking thing.)

I read Elie Wiesel's memoir "Night" a couple nights ago. It's been on my to-be-read pile for a bit. It was chilling.

I bought a memoir by a woman who was a Polish schoolgirl during WWII and helped rescue Jews. I can't remember the title and it's all the way in the other room right now...

I also plan to alternate informative reading with my typical taste for contemporary fiction. And memoirs I guess. I've been reading a bunch of those. I just finished "A Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls which is a great read. Pick it up. Now I'm starting on a Canadian novel, "The Birth House" by Ami McKay.

On a different note, I saw the movie An Inconvinient Truth today. It was very well done. Go see it. Make sure that you're in the mood for something a little university-lecture style. That's basically what it is. But it's very coherently put together. I commend Al Gore for taking the initiative to: a) educate himself and b) make it his mission to educate others. I always admire a person who has done the research and presents it to me with some snazzy graphs (he had me at the first line graph).

Of course, documentaries like this make me angry. You can't help but watch it and think "Why is this man not President? He was elected after all, and he can speak well and he's very informed." (Did anyone see when he hosted SNL and they showed the parallel universe where he was president? That was hilarious!) And, of course it makes me angry that global warming is a problem being ignored by the US government. And, I'm almost even angrier that Canada has not been exactly stellar in its efforts. Although, in An Inconvienent Truth, Gore makes us look better as pointing out that we're better than the US... Personally, I would say that we're "less worse" than the US. I coined the term "less worse" back in high school when I felt that the term "better" didn't work for something since it implies some sort of good. My mother hates when I say less worse because of the inherent bad grammar but it sums up how I feel about many things in this world.

And... things are getting far more worse now that we have our new PM Stephen W. Harper who can really rival GWB for bad environmental policy.

Okay, enough of rambling... although it does make me feel better. Go see "An Inconvinient Truth" though. It's great.

And now, off to bed I go.

ps I leave in less than 2 weeks for Britain! Woot! I picked up my travel documents today!

I said I'm Luke, I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee. Drives me around in his JCB.

Random List of Thoughts for today:

1) Today's title is from the song "JCB" by Nizlopi. Watch the awesome video here. It makes me so happy. I know that I'm such a kid deep down inside 'cuz I love anything that's rather childish. Anyway, I love, love, love this song. I actually discovered it from MuchMusic. I believe the last thing I discovered on Much was Green Day back in '94.

2) One year ago today I was snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef.

3) Today is my parents' 36th wedding anniversary. They went out for Chinese food for lunch.

4) Today I went on a long walk to run errands. One place I had to go was Sunrise records to pick up my Sarah Harmer tickets. I walked into the store and noticed a coworker there. He had his back turned so I sneaked out of the store to avoid him. Real mature on my part, eh? This guy is always kind of cold to me and is the only person that I run into quite a bit outside of work. Anyway, I didn't much feel like a chilly how's-your-summer-going conversation, so I figured I could pick up my tickets later and ducked out.

5) I watched my favourite summer tv show, Rockstar, tonight. Lukas, who is from Toronto and looks like Hawksley, is my favourite followed by Dilana, who I like despite the fact she kind of scares me. The other Canadian was better this week. Anyway, as I post, I'm casting my votes and chatting with Raina, fellow Rockstar devotee.

6) I finished the book Suite Francaise last night. It is a fabulous, fabulous book. It's really too bad that the author was killed before she could finish it. I think that if she had lived and the book had been published after the war (as opposed to in 2004), it would have been considered a classic by now.

7) I started another book on my summer reading list: The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. So far very good.

8) And... thanks for all of the great comments on my blog's new look. I'm loving it too.

A Change Will Do You Good.

After 1 year, 3 months, 18 days and 269 posts, I decided that it was time to give my blog a new look. Well, Voila! I was attracted by this pretty pink template for two reasons: 1) its name is "Rawk"; and 2) its colour scheme matches my iPod case.

Now, as for the lame title of my blog, I'm going to stick with that. I only typed that in when I started my blog since I couldn't think of a title and figured that I'd come up with one sooner or later. Never happened. Now I'm attached to the wordy awkwardness of the title.

I think I'm happy with this new look. There are a few tweaks that I think I will do (I don't like the order of stuff on the sidebar) but I've done enough playing for today.

Okay, enough of the computer geekery. Let's rehash the weekend:

• My pal Wendy visited and we had a good time. Went out for dinner, went the bead store, the cheap bookstore and saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2. My assessment of the movie is 1.5 stars for the movie + 0.5 stars for the cliffhanger ending + 1 star for Johnny Depp = 3 stars out of 5.
• Watched the World Cup at my friends' place. This was the first time I've ever watched a (professional) soccer game in its entirety. I was amazed and amused by the whole dramatization of injuries in soccer (diving or whatever it's called). My friend told me she saw footage of a team (Portugal) practising looking really hurt... Anyway, the whole headbutting incident made the game rather interesting and I'm happy that Italy won since I was cheering for them.
• Last night, at 1:45 am, I realized I had not yet watered my roommate's flowers as I had said I would. I did not remember that they had forecasted thunderstorms for today. Hauled myself out of bed and made several trips onto the balcony to water the flowers. Got the bottoms of my pjs muddy in the process. You bet I was thrilled to see the rain this morning. Decided to spend another couple of hours in bed because of this weather that seemed to be mocking me.

Anyhow, now that the rain has stopped and the sun is peaking out, I think I will go for walk. I'm pretty sure that this walk will end at a Starbucks, so I'll bring a book with me just in case. I'm almost done Suite Francaise, and I'm anxious to start a new book from my summer reading pile.

Help Matthew Stay

I read a story this morning on the Toronto Star that really affected me. In a nutshell, there is a Vietenmese orphan living in Toronto who has struggled to get an education and now he facing deportation. It really saddened me, and also made me think that with Canada Day having just passed, we should be honoured to have a person like this in Canada, as opposed to deporting him.

If you feel similarly, follow the directions here to send an email to the Minister of Immigration.

Solutions

All right, so here they are - my answers to my "Two Truths and a Lie" from the previous post. Thank you all for playing. I left your scores in the comments section. Congrats to my dear friend Jo who was able to identify the highest number of my lies: 6/10. Again, to all of you, thanks for taking the time to play ;)

Trio #1 - Encounters with the Law
a) When I was a teenager, my friends and I drank vodka in front of the police station. Truth - we drank it mixed in cups Tim Horton's hot chocolate.
b) I was once escorted back into Canada by the US immigration police. Truth - long story. Let's just say kid in grade 9 goes to visit her grandma in Sarnia, falls asleep on the train, misses stop, gets woken up by a cutoms agent, gets taken back to her country by the immigration police. At least the kid can laugh about it years later.
c) I've gotten 3 tickets for speeding in my life. - Lie! I've never gotten a ticket for speeding. Knock on wood.

Trio #2 - Embarassing Concerts
a) I went to a New Kids on the Block concert when I was in grade 6. - Lie! Never seen 'em.
b) I went to a Clay Aiken concert. - Truth - This happened last summer (my roommate got free tickets, okay), check out my review. It doesn't comprosmise my musical coolness in the least, okay...
c) I went to a concert where the top 3 Canadian Idol contestants at the time (Kalan Porter, Teresa Sokyrka, and Jacob Hoggerd) all performed. Truth - they played at Beachfest at Sunnyside park a few years ago. I was there for other bands (namely Hawksley).

Trio #3 - Flying High (on planes, of course)
a) I flew on 18 different flights within the span of 10 months. Truth - I flew a lot when I worked in Northern Ontario.
b) I was once on a flight where I was the only passenger. Truth - They were tiny planes. I scored a Saturday flight with just me, the pilot and the co-pilot.
c) The longest flight I was ever on was 16 hours long. Lie! - LA to Australia was only 14 hours.

Trio #4 - Crappy Books I wasted precious moments of my life reading
a) I read Pamela Anderson's novel "Star". Truth - it was bad and didn't even have an ending.
b) I read Paris Hilton's book "Confessions of an Heiress". Lie! - I only read "fiction" by starlets.
c) I read Nicole Richie's novel "The Truth About Diamonds". - Truth - it was bad. I don't know why I read it. I suppose I'm the kind of person who's attracted to trainwrecks.

Trio #5 - Interesting(?) University Courses
a) In university, I took a course that was all about fungi. Truth - it was actually quite good.
b) In university, I took a course in the evolution of sexual behaviour in primates. Lie! - I took lots of evolution of behaviour courses, but never one specifically on this.
c) In university, I took a course in Greek & Roman mythology. Truth - fulfilled my humanities requirement. I liked it at the beginning but then got sick about hearing about silly gods.

Trio #6 - Encounters with Musicians
a) I attended the wedding reception for the bass player of a band that I really love. Truth - Let's just say I know someone who knows someone who invited me. If you really know me, you can figure out what band it is. Here's the story.
b) I gave Hawksley Workman a chocolate bar. Truth - Some friends and I went to his book signing, saw a lady give him flowers, wished that we had something for him, ran to the corner store and got him a big Hershey bar 'cuz we knew he liked chocolate.
c) I kissed Ben Folds on the cheek when I met him. Lie! I did meet Ben Folds but I was too nervous to even really say anything. But I did get my picture taken with him.

Trio #7 - I used to be really obsessed with the band Sloan...
a) I spent hours drawing a portrait of Chris Murphy of Sloan. Lie! My pal Becca T did this during the height of our mutual Sloan obsession. I can't draw to save my life. It's a really good portrait though.
b) I painted and designed a paper mache box with pictures of Sloan for my pal Becca T. Truth - I can do collage-y type crafts.
c) I wrote a choose-your-own-adventure story about Sloan. Truth - It was a present for Becca T... She had given me one the previous year, so I wrote the sequel. The idea is horrendously nerdy, I know. But they're really funny.

Trio #8 - Tasty (?) Australian Cuisine
a) I've eaten kangaroo. Truth - It's really good. I actually had it twice. It's like a really tender red meat. I'd recommend it.
b) I've eaten emu. Lie! I could have had it there, but it didn't seem exotic enough to be worth my while.
c) I've eaten crocodile. Truth - It's rubbery.

Trio #9 - Encounters with the Law Part 2
a) I trespassed in the backyard of a policeman's house. Truth - we had to sneak through it to get to this really crappy pit party back in high school.
b) I had a friend who was a police officer who used to take me out "fighting crime" in her police van at 1 am. Truth - This is the type of thing that would only happen up north. We really had nothing to do so we'd drive up and down the one road in town and gossip.
c) I've been in a police helicopter. Lie! I totally made that up. Not even a shred of truth.

Trio #10 - Encounters with Celebrities
a) I met John Travolta. Truth - It was when he was promoting that crappy movie, Battlefied Earth. I got his autogrpah.
b) Tom Cruise waved at me. Lie! No shred of truth there. No encounters with the "cruiseazy" one. Thank God.
c) Ellen Degeneres gave me a really dirty look. Truth - Becca T and I were shopping in Indigo years ago (this was back when she was dating Anne Heche) and I noticed her and I said (far too loudly) "Look it's Ellen Degeneres!" She wasn't supposed to hear... I'm just loud when I'm surprised. Sorry Becka, she would do that.

So with that out of the way, it's almost the weekend! My friend Wendy's coming to visit me today and we're going to perhaps shop and go out for dinner. On Sunday, I'm going to a World Cup party at my friends' place. Forza Italia! (I think that means "Go Italy"... That's what the Roots Tshirt says, at least...)

Hope you all have super weekends!

The Secret's in the Telling.

K wrote a neat post about secrets on her blog inspired by the book/blog Post Secret. As I was spilling my deep, dark secrets in her comments (really not so deep or dark), I started to think of that game "Two Truths and a Lie". You know, the one where you list two truths and a lie and then your friends/acquaintences/well-wishers/etc. have to figure out which one is the lie.

So, I'm going to post ten trios of statements, each of which contains a lie. Try and spot the lies! I'll post the answers later...

(Oh yeah, and if what I come up with is lame and sucks, forgive me, it's late.)

Trio #1 - Encounters with the Law
a) When I was a teenager, my friends and I drank vodka in front of the police station.
b) I was once escorted back into Canada by the US immigration police.
c) I've gotten 3 tickets for speeding in my life.

Trio #2 - Embarassing Concerts
a) I went to a New Kids on the Block concert when I was in grade 6.
b) I went to a Clay Aiken concert.
c) I went to a concert where the top 3 Canadian Idol contestants at the time (Kalan Porter, Teresa Sokyrka, and Jacob Hoggerd) all performed.

Trio #3 - Flying High (on planes, of course)
a) I flew on 18 different flights within the span of 10 months.
b) I was once on a flight where I was the only passenger.
c) The longest flight I was ever on was 16 hours long.

Trio #4 - Crappy Books I wasted precious moments of my life reading
a) I read Pamela Anderson's novel "Star".
b) I read Paris Hilton's book "Confessions of an Heiress".
c) I read Nicole Richie's novel "The Truth About Diamonds".

Trio #5 - Interesting(?) University Courses
a) In university, I took a course that was all about fungi.
b) In university, I took a course in the evolution of sexual behaviour in primates.
c) In university, I took a course in Greek & Roman mythology.

Trio #6 - Encounters with Musicians
a) I attended the wedding reception for the bass player of a band that I really love.
b) I gave Hawksley Workman a chocolate bar.
c) I kissed Ben Folds on the cheek when I met him.

Trio #7 - I used to be really obsessed with the band Sloan...
a) I spent hours drawing a portrait of Chris Murphy of Sloan.
b) I painted and designed a paper mache box with pictures of Sloan for my pal Becca T.
c) I wrote a choose-your-own-adventure story about Sloan.

Trio #8 - Tasty (?) Australian Cuisine
a) I've eaten kangaroo.
b) I've eaten emu.
c) I've eaten crocodile.

Trio #9 - Encounters with the Law Part 2
a) I trespassed in the backyard of a policeman's house.
b) I had a friend who was a police officer who used to take me out "fighting crime" in her police van at 1 am.
c) I've been in a police helicopter.

Trio #10 - Encounters with Celebrities
a) I met John Travolta.
b) Tom Cruise waved at me.
c) Ellen Degeneres gave me a really dirty look.

All right, will anyone get ten out of ten????? Good Luck!

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!