Ice Cold Pepsi, Anyone?

Of course the best Oscar moment of all was the Pepsi commercial during the first commercial break of the night. The one with Spartacus. I called Dad, we called Amilynne, we laughed and laughed and laughed. Hopefully that gets played again and again.

Falling Snow and Little Gold Men

A storm has hit the East Coast, and happily it's cold enough that the stuff falling here is white and/or icy. Snow day! Unexpected, and quite probably the last one of the year. What a gift. I've got lots to do.

So last night was the march of the golden statues. And let me say that the 77th Annual Academy Awards were just plain terrible. They were so predictable, and yet since so few of the movies being celebrated had actually looked interesting enough to see, there was just an empty who cares feeling about the whole thing. Not to mention that Chris Rock was so annoying in his first introductory bit - a constant crescendo in bad taste and volume - that I had to put him on mute. My theory is that someone behind stage told him to quit screaming into the microphone after that, because his next bit was in a normal voice, which to Chris Rock must seem the quietest whisper.

The best acceptance speech of the night belonged to Jorge Drexler, who just sang his song from Motorcycle Diaries simply and beautifully and walked off. The garish performance by Santana and Antonio Banderas had also prompted muting action with my remote. It was so far from the tone and feel of the film. The magic of the story is the emergent change prompted by seeing real life in South America as a whole and being introduced to revolutionary ideas gradually throughout the process, not some sudden and loud epiphany brought on by a rock concert. Hooray for Drexler for standing up to the Academy when it wouldn't let him perform his own beautiful song.

And speaking of singing, when did Beyonce suddenly become the only woman in the world who can sing? Her voice is pretty, but how annoying was it that she sang every song?

Hooray that Morgan Freeman finally got an Oscar! Hooray that The Aviator, Hollywood's narcissistic love letter to itself, didn't get best picture! Scorsese may be a good director, but he needs to direct something we want to see. Although I do admit that I probably will see it at some point for the purpose of catching Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Katherine Hepburn.

Elizabeth and I were on Instant Messenger through the whole event. We both agree that we would like to wake up as Cate Blanchett. Or even Gwyneth Paltrow. But mostly Cate Blanchett. Watching the proceedings with Elizabeth was so fun! Three years ago I threw a fantastic Oscars Party in Texas and having Elizabeth a computer screen away was the most fun I've had watching the ceremonies since my party. If the Academy actually has movies nominated next year that I care about, I really should just take a day or two off and go to Texas to throw another party. Wouldn't that be fun.

At the 2002 party, I made foods to celebrate the best picture nominees. That year, there was some fun competition. Although the Fellowship of the Ring was, in hindsight, my lasting favorite, I was pulling for Moulin Rouge. A Beautiful Mind won it. Gosford Park and In the Bedroom were also nominated. I served chicken wings for In the Bedroom because it seemed kinda white trashy. The Fellowship got a braided stuffed bread ring, Beautiful Mind got caramel apple cider (apple for the teacher), but Moulin Rouge was the coup de grace: a red velvet cake smothered in chocolate ganache and decorated with chocolate dipped strawberries. I honestly don't remember what I did for Gosford Park. Cheese? There was always cheese. There was also a veggie tray in honor of Sting, who performed that night.

So here's the gaping difference between the ceremonies then and now. Then: I had seen and liked four of the five nominations! Now: I hadn't bothered seeing any of the nominations! I wouldn't mind seeing Finding Neverland, Ray or Million Dollar Baby, but that still didn't get me out to see them in anticipation of the big night. The academy needs to put itself in order. Where was I ♥ Huckabees in this whole mess? The show was brilliant! And why don't they make an Oscar for best ensemble cast? And why didn't someone just shoot Chris Rock when he started trashing Jude Law? Just Saturday Amilynne and I were commenting on some of the brilliant fine points of his performance in I ♥ Huckabees (although we both love Marky Mark Wahlberg even more). Thank you Sean Penn for setting the record straight.

Here is what the Academy is going to have to do if they want me to continue watching:

1. Fire Chris Rock. Who should take his place? Let's think. Who did a wonderful job of it for years and years? Johnny Carson. So why aren't we looking for someone like that who entertains us nightly and hosts these stars all the time anyway? Letterman? Conan? Even Carson Daly? (n.b., Leno did not make this short list). They won't do it? Then how about someone who is funny: Tina Fey! Even Ray Romano would have been an improvement over Chris Rock.
2. Nominate some good and daring movies like I ♥ Huckabees and Motorcycle Diaries. Part of this includes just giving Martin Scorsese the lifetime achievement award so we can quit feeling like we have to nominate him every time he makes a movie for the sole purpose of earning said nomination. Really. Do you know anyone who saw Gangs of New York?
3. Increase the practice of nominating outstanding foreign language talents for the acting awards. I was so shocked and pleased to see Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) nominated. This must continue.
4. Stop inviting Puffy to the party. Ugg. His blatant self-promotion is so ugly. (His wife's dress was beautiful, though!)

And there you have it, and there I'll stop, even though I could probably continue. The 77th Annual Academy Awards will hopefully fade from memory quickly, leaving behind just enough of a trace that we remember not to repeat it.

94 Minutes in Band

Today the secretary called to request that I substitute in band class the last period of the day. I agreed, and although I knew I didn't want to do it, I was even agreeable in agreeing. I've done this once before. It was very loud, but it went all right. So when lunch ended, off I went to the band room.

Some kid who graduated a couple of years before was there. He was quite self-important: he obviously thought of himself as being among the most glorious products our school's band program has ever produced. Probably out there someone would agree. So as the bell rang and I began calling the roomful of moving bodies to take a seat, he came over to me to request that, if I didn't have anything planned, he might have the band play a song that he liked. I said that would be fine, but that nothing would happen until the students got their bodies into seats and I took roll. The band teacher, as usual, had left whomever was unfortunate enough to be substituting no lesson plans and at first glance I hadn't seen a rollbook either, although that did surface later. (Let me add as an aside that in this room the substitute is pretty much a prisoner: the telephone is locked in the band director's locked office...)

Seeing my adamant insistence on taking roll, the visitor began urging the students to take a seat as well. Let me simply state that this took MUCH too long. A group of adolescents should be mature enough to see a chair and get their hind parts into it, but this group simply could not. When they were finally seated, I held up the sheet for roll and stated that no one was to get out of their seat until every person's name was on the roll. I then passed it to the front row. Two of the young men found sitting in their seats too difficult and wandered about a bit. Ten minutes in and I was already going crazy.

As the roll began its slow journey around the room, the visitor decided to take advantage of the relative order to introduce himself. "I'm So-and-So, I used to be the drum major, I play this instrument and that instrument and this instrument and that instrument but I don't play that instrument because, pardon me, I don't like it, and I want to play this song with you because it is my favorite..." and a rude little girl near the front chimed in with "I think someone is bragging. Do you hear someone bragging? I do believe that someone is bragging." I told her to be quiet, but mouths like hers don't stop. She was classic prima donna of band class. So cute and so sassy. So annoying.

When the roll came back to me, a name was missing, so I had to call out the names to figure out who couldn't put two atoms of their brain together long enough to sign a piece of paper. The culprit was identified (of course this was one of the two who couldn't stay in their seats during the rolltaking process) and the visitor decided that he could take over.

His first order of business was to request that the students who hadn't brought their instruments to class be permitted to go fetch them. I halted the mad rush, stating that no one would be leaving the room without a hall pass and that students would go one at a time. I then went about looking for a pad of hall passes. Most teachers have them stowed in an accessable place. Not this one. If she had any, they were locked in the office. This was the last period of the day, a time when students feel that wandering the halls is their right and priveledge. I was simply not going to send them out without a proper hall pass. So I said that no one would be leaving. They would have to play the song with the instruments of the students who came prepared for class.

And the clamor began.

And it became scales, in unision, then in harmonics, and it became a piece of music with some obvious parts missing but melodic nontheless. The problem was its brevity: the entire exercise lasted only 10 minutes or so, and that left this group with their instruments out and no direction. And a boy bolted out of the classroom. He must have broken into a run the minute he cleared the door, because by the time I got there, he was gone. I waited and stopped him on his way in. He had gone for the mouthpiece of his tuba. I told him that he was completely off, thinking that he could leave without permission. He tried to say "sorry" to get me off my back. The thing is, these kids don't understand the meaning of the word "sorry," beyond its obvious function as a way to get someone off one's back. Not this time. I told him I would be writing him up.

Unfortunately, the tuba was now in full assembly and ready to go. The tuba player and the visitor, who had brought his own baritone tuba, began to play as loudly as their lungs could blow to the beat of the big marchingband drum. I was in hell. Every nerve ending in my body was standing on end. The visitor turned into a corner to amplify the noise. At some point, I must have had an awful look on my face, because the tuba player asked me what was wrong--were they misbehaving? No, I said, I just was not used to noise at this level. And that's the truth. Nothing in my life is that loud, not even my neighbors, who I'm sure will subject me to all kinds of poundings and slammings and yellings and playings of bass beats on the stereo at full blast this weekend.

And the visitor got bored and left.

With half an hour to go, a girl came up claiming that she absolutely had to use the bathroom. I told her that her teacher had left her high and dry without a hall pass. She sulked off, but I kept my eye on her. She appeared to be dancing, so I wrote a pass for her on pink paper and told her to go straight there and back. She did.

Around this time a boy in a grey hoodie came in the door, buzzed past me holding up a hall pass, and went to talk to a group that was practicing drumline. I went right over and asked to see his pass. He showed it to me. It said his first name, the destination was marked "RR", and the teacher's signature was illegible. The lines for date and time were blanked. I asked the young visitor who had written the pass--he gave me the name of a teacher across the hall, a new young thing who feels it's very important to be cool with the kiddies. I informed him that this room was not the restroom and told him to leave. He began to protest and I had to take him by the arm to start his movement toward the door. This was an instant when the phone would have been handy--to get security to come and haul him away (ha! as if security answered calls for help!).

A little while later he was back, with what appeared to be the teacher's handwriting having scratched out "RR" and written "bandroom." Give me a break. A teacher cannot give a child a pass to hang out in another classroom! I sent him out again, just in time for a little girl to come buzzing in. At this point, only about 15-18 minutes remain of the period. As she marches in, I ask her who she is. She snaps at me something about being the TA and moved off. I told her to turn around and speak with me, which she really did not want to do. And all of the other children are screaming "She's the TA! She can do that!" and I ask her if she has a pass. No. Where has she been? Helping another teacher with the Black History Month program. Well would she please sign in so she can be counted present today? She does and she turns around to talk with some other students.

At this point, many of them are playing a song together, and when it ended, I pounced on the opportunity. "OK! Let's get everything packed up!" I couldn't handle another minute. The TA echoed me. "Come on. Pack up." Oh. Wow. Thanks for the support. I'm sort of standing by the door now. And she heads right past me to leave. I stop her. "Where are you going?" She needed to pick up a CD from the teacher she had been working with before. This teacher's room is right down the hall. I tell her she can get it on her way out of the building when school ends. She turned around and told me no, she was going to get it now, because she had something after school, and she was not going to do it later. I told her no, she doesn't get to take that tone with me, she gets to ask permission and in this case the answer is no, because even if I had a hall pass to issue, it's only ten minutes to the bell and school policy prohibits hall passes the first and last fifteen minutes of class. She turned to leave, and I warned her that if she walked out the door, I would write her up, and she waved her arm at me and walked out.

And a big group was banging on the piano and hitting things with drumsticks, and then they moved closer to the door, and finally the bell rang and we were free. As I was waiting outside the door for someone to come lock it, I saw the grey hoodie kid emerge from the classroom across the hall, and I had to wonder why the teacher in that class felt he had time to roam the halls, it being a core area class and all, and what with the administration pressuring us to integrate some of that into our classes because the core area teachers just don't have enough time to cover all of the standards.

I went to my classroom and wrote the two referrals. Then I went to the office hoping to catch a principal. I caught all three. I first expressed my unbelief and dismay that the children play all of those instruments at full blast in such a tiny room, and then offered my two referrals, stating that the children acted attrociously, that I did not let them into the halls because half of them had not brought their instruments, and that I had not called the parents of the two children whom I had referred, implying that I wanted one of the principals to take this hell over from that point. One did. I then turned around to see my department head, who usually gets saddled to watch the band, but who had been with another class that period. She told me that the band teacher's husband had just gotten back from the middle east, but that she knew he would be coming a month ago, and why didn't she get a substitute? I laughed and said that no substitute would take them. And then I said very loudly that she needs to start leaving plans for her students to do something when she's not there, and that I was going home to put myself in an isolation tank so my nerves would quit twitching. And I didn't care who heard.

Update on the blinds

I hope the school board never finds out that since I received my new blinds I have stayed at school working until 8:00 pm twice. I would hate for them to know how easily I can be bought.

How to Make a Girl Happy

Ok, guys: Listen up. I am about to reveal to you the true secret for how to make a girl happy. And I'll tell you that the answer is not what you think.

To make a girl happy, alleviate pain. Perhaps I should explain? For me, the answer lies in home furnishings. Today I received new blinds in my classroom. They are big clunky industrial blinds--nothing gorgeous. Unlike the old blinds, they are clean, and they are not broken. So why am I so happy? One of the five 15-foot high windows in my classroom has not had blinds for a very long time. And my classroom faces south. This means that the afternoon light and heat flood into my classroom and stay there, trapped, causing mild discomfort at best and frequent raging migraine headaches at the worst. And today it ended. The window now has blinds. The number of headaches should subsequently decrease, and I should be happy!

So I'm not saying that pleasure-inducing things like chocolate don't help keep a girl happy, but to start the happy mood, one must seek out pain and destroy it.

Scatterbrain

Nothing seems to be where I think it is. My great-grandma had an explanation for such things: gremlins. I'm about to be a believer. It's almost like I'm living a double life: the first, in which I am certain that I am taking a number of actions, and the second, in which it becomes evident that I haven't. The scary thing will be when this progresses to a point where I am uncertain not only of my actions but also of what actions need to be taken! Is this the brink of a midlife crisis?

Bad Week at Home

This has been a terrible week. First Jena died, then my dad went into the hospital. Fortunately, from what he's telling me, he'll be back home today (he went in on Tuesday), and he's feeling better. Some kind of an infection in his foot was making it impossible to walk. Yesterday he took a couple of short walks in the hospital, though, and he sounded cheerier (maybe less drugged is a better way of explaining it). I really wish I could be home.

Jena

My friend Jena died this morning. My dad called to tell me this afternoon. I am so sad for her parents. And I can't believe that she is gone. Jena has always been there, just a house away from home. Her family already lived there when we moved onto the street. I wasn't even three yet. So I don't remember much before Jena and I were friends. Our birthdays were 12 days apart, and we always celebrated those together. We went to school together and we played together for days on end, then "hung out" together once we outgrew playing, watching TV and videos, listening to Motley Crue and Guns N' Roses, and experimenting with makeup. I borrowed her clothes when we would go out dancing. The summer after we graduated from high school, we got old enough to sit on her porch in the summer drinking Diet Cherry Cokes and listening to Garth Brooks. She permed my hair when she was in cosmetology school, and teased me that I looked too much like a co-ed when I wore sweats at home for the entire Christmas break. And for years and years we talked. I would get in trouble in high school for talking on the phone with her for too long. Later, she was the nearby listening ear for long hours when my parents were getting divorced. And even though we ended up running in different crowds and taking different paths in life, we always visited when I went home. And even though I'll still visit her parents, I really will miss visiting her.

A Night with the Green Pen

I correct my students' work in green. When they correct their own work, they use red, but I use green so as to make the page look less like it's bleeding. I suppose that on some alien planet there is a teacher who uses red ink because her blood runs green. But at any rate, tonight I've been up correcting papers. A big stack of them. And I'm only half through it, and today at school I'm sure to get another stack. But I'm going to quit for tonight and get a couple hours of sleep before going back.

I love this time of year because many of the students tend to be at their best. It's splendid to look at the papers and see how much they have learned, and to see the new ways they're using the language creatively. My third and fourth years do a journal every week. They are so fun to read, especially when the topic allows them to really be creative. I also love this time of year because most of the first years are finally settling down a bit. There is a break through point where the language seems a little less foreign--it usually begins to hit some of the students after about a semester, although for some of them, it hits the next year. For one student, this is the fourth year of working with the language and it's finally opening up. I get this mental image of their heads just opening up and light streaming in and out.

I love teaching!

Glory, Glory!

My luck has held--longer than I had dared to hope.

Tomorrow we have yet another day of weather-related school closings. I do love a stolen day. Nothing gives me more pleasure than having a planned and structured day abolished with nothing to take its place. Now, of course, since I am also a world-class procrastinator, there is plenty of work to do here at home to get ready to go back to school on Wednesday, but I'm terribly happy nontheless, and I'm probably even more excited for a snow day than the kids are, in spite of the fact that some might frown on that. Frown away. I'm sleeping in tomorrow.

Goodbye, Johnny

I know that this blog is resembling paparazzi celebwatch recently, but Johnny Carson's passing has invoked some memories that beg to be written about. When I was growing up, Johnny Carson was an institution at my house. My dad is a night owl who loves a good joke (two traits he passed on to me), so as I hit high school, it wasn't uncommon to be called into the living room to watch the monologue or to see who Johnny had on the show. Dad would be laying on his stomach on the floor, with his chin on his fists while his elbows dug into a couple of pillows to prop him up, and with his knees bent so that his feet (always in dark socks) were up in the air. And he would chuckle at the jokes and explain who unfamiliar guests were and it was always a good chance to laugh together, especially since we tended to ruffle each other's feathers a good bit back then. So we would watch together for a while, then maybe I would head back downstairs to finish my homework, or if it was summer maybe I'd stay up and watch longer, but at any rate humor from Carson was a unifying force. And the guys on late night now are good, but no one can touch Johnny Carson. It's too bad to see someone like that slip from the world, even if he had been out of the public eye for a while.

Winter bulbs

It has happened! My amaryllis plant is beginning to bloom. It's amazing how you can watch the thing grow for a month, then one day, it looks like it might bloom, and the next, there is a fantastic flower in full glory. The bulb I planted boasts petals that varigate from white centers to reddish pink tips and it's gorgeous. Today is a day when I could really use a digital camera to show it to everyone. I took pictures with my film camera instead, and in about six months when I finish this roll, I may remember to post pictures. I really don't hate film. In fact, for some reason I feel that negatives are one of the miracles of the modern world. It's just that there will always be days like today when my postmodern insistance on immediacy is forced to take a back seat to a system that really works perfectly well. So for today, my flowers will be a joy for me alone.

On a related yet completely different tangent, I wonder why so many bulb flowers come from the Netherlands? One would think that bulb flowers would be more widely dispersed. Or were the Dutch somehow the only ones to culture them to the forms we so admire? Somethng to look into on a day when I'm not writing semester exams. But thank heavens in the mean time. It doesn't feel so wintery in here with such an springish beauty sharing my house.

note: Since posting this, I have learned that calla lillies are from Africa, and amaryllis comes from South America. Phew. Just because my bulbs were cultivated in Holland... but this makes much more sense!

Does she need glasses?

Sure, she's pretty, but has anyone else noticed how much Melania likes to squint (glare) at the camera? EVERY PICTURE. She looks pouty and unhappy. I wonder if she'll start smiling now that she's actually married to the money--or if it will just get worse as she waits for The Donald to drop dead...

Words from The Edge

Last night I had a dream that involved attending a U2 concert in an ampitheater. So in my dream, The Edge catches up with me. He is under the mistaken impression that I was stalking Adam Clayton. In reality, if I were a celebrity stalker, Adam Clayton is the last of the band that I would stalk. In my dream, I wisely kept from The Edge the fact that he would actually be the first on my list. So I didn't scare him off, and he started talking, and spouting words of wisdom that I wanted to keep, so I wrote them down on the dirt on the hill inside the ampitheater, while some kind of hunt and capture war went on in the background. Just as I was finishing, security chased the last few of us out of the ampitheater, but once back at wherever home was (some kind of tunnel world), I realized that I had to have those words, so I set off to break into the ampitheater, riding a high wave and dodging police helicopters as I went. Of course, security caught me as I got there, and I was just beginning to make progress in persuading them to let me go look for the words when the dream ended. It feels a bit like the Hitchhiker's Guide--somewhere in my cerebral landscape, the answer is written in the dirt, but I don't know that I'll pass that way again.

Madness

Last night one of my students came upon a mugging. Thankfully, there was a group of people between him and the girls who were getting mugged (by two guys at gunpoint/knifepoint). He had stayed late at school for a basketball game. He left here at 10:00 and didn't get home until after midnight. He says that the muggers had demanded the girls' purses, one handed it over, the other said no, and the mugger with the pistol put it right up against her forehead, so she handed it over. One of the girls was also deprived of her expensive shoes. I know that this student is almost an adult, but I still am so outraged that someone would cause so much fear anywhere near him. He is a great guy with a big heart and he deserves a much better world than this one.

Back in the Saddle Again

Today my third years were correcting dialogues they had written over Christmas break, and I was poking my nose in and helping out here and there--I was pointing something out on a dialogue, when my spunkiest student protested, "To err is human!"
"But to speak Italian is divine." My response was immediate. It took them just a second to realize how quickly and perfectly the comeback had arrived.

I rock.

Christmas Break, Day 16

If I could reach out with my mind and snap one thing in half, it would be the car horn of the person who comes to my apartment complex and honks and honks for someone to come out. I don't know who the honker or the honkee (not to be confused with honky) are, but I hate that horn. It comes at normal times, like now, a Sunday evening, but it also comes on holidays (like Christmas) and at times that should be peaceful, like early Saturday morning. It's an every-other-day occurrence at least, and the horn does not stop until the person comes out. A simple solution for this would be cell phones. The honker politely calls the honkee on the phone as he/she is approaching, and the honkee answers and says "I'll be right down" or "I'll be down in five minutes" or whatever, and if the honkee takes too long to come out, the honker can make a slightly irritated call to the honkee, but the peace is kept for the rest of the apartment complex, which would have no idea of what is going on, and could go on sleeping in on a Saturday morning.

School is back in session tomorrow and I still have lesson plans for the week to write. I hope I don't have to write any tests this week. I would just like a normal week of teaching to ease back into things. I've been reviewing in my mind what I thought I would accomplish over Christmas break and comparing it to the reality of what I've done:

1. Goal: Make chocolates. Result: Not done. Centers are ready for dipping, but we'll see when that happens.

2. Goal: Make caramels. Result: One batch, thought I would do more, but haven't. Still need to cut and wrap the one batch.

3. Goal: Clean house. Result: Sort of done. Christmas isn't put away yet, but I figure I can use Epiphany as an excuse--if I take stuff down by next weekend, I can just say I was celebrating that.

4. Goal: Lots of R&R. Result: Sort of done. I spent way too much time chasing around and shopping. Must shop less in the new year. This will involve learning to plan and make a list so I can make fewer trips to the store.

5. Goal: Go see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Ocean's Twelve. Result: complete.

6. Goal: Finish preparing for the PRAXIS test and make an appointment to take it. Result: not even touched. Must go ahead with the appointment making this week in spite of feeling unprepared for math section.

So here is what I did instead of finishing all of these goals:

1. Chasing around shopping. See above.

2. Rearranging bedroom to make room for exercise bike.

3. Lots of talking on the phone. I hope Amilynne's bill isn't sky high this month.

4. Other things as explained in other blog entries.

Well, I must make some lesson plans or pay the consequence tomorrow.

Christmas Break, Days 14 & 15

So with this I reach across two years...

I regret to say that I spent my last moments of 2004 at a dance. It was horrible and boring, and I even spent some time hiding in the bathroom just because being outside of the bathroom was such a boring prospect. I am swearing off church dances forever. They play stupid music, trying to play a bit of everything thereby screwing up any prospect of playing any danceable music, and I really don't remember the last time I met a new person at a dance because people come in with a crowd and stay with that crowd until they leave. The night would have been salvageable had I been invisible. I admit that the people watching at such a place is fascinating. There was one group I could have watched all night--beautiful people, the women in beautiful dresses and insanely capable in spike-heeled shoes, salsa dancing and having so much fun. (Yes, the dj had enough sense to play a salsa music segment, which was fun and very danceable.) Unfortunately people tend to notice if someone they know is sitting and watching the dancing for too long, and they come over with pity, slightly annoyed, to try to pull the watcher back onto the dance floor. So I hid in the bathroom to ease their discomfort and mine.

Let it not be feared that the trip was a total loss. The reason I actually went was to hang out with the girls in the car on the way there and the way back. Had a blast on the way there. Less so on the way back--I think people were pissed at me for being bored at the dance and didn't have much to say to me. Which is nutty because I went there knowing the dance itself would suck, I just wanted the journey. So I fell asleep for the first half of the trip back, then woke up and tried to trace my way back into the conversation. Who knows.

So anyway it's the new year. I spent the day in bed with a book, Eragon, quite engrossing and had I been wise I would have just stayed in bed with the book last night too.

A vile little nudging is worming its way back into my consciousness: I have to go back to school Monday. There is much yet to do to prepare, as I have done nothing toward that end in the past two weeks. Tomorrow will be a busy day.

Christmas Break, Days 11, 12, & 13

Tuesday I went to see The Life Acquatic With Steve Zissou. Amilynne summs it up best by saying it's like Bottlerocket: Little Boys playing at being grown-ups with jobs, and floundering about a lot, but really just playing. It was a lot of fun--especially all of the David Bowie songs in Portughese (Major Tom being the best-placed of them all). Afterward I got my new exercise bike. Which prompted a re-arranging of everything in my room to make a spot for it. Moving bookcases is slow work, especially because I took the time to rearrange the books into basic categories.

Wednesday I picked Thomas up at the airport and got him to help me put the bike together. I was going to do it myself until I opened the instruction manual and the first instruction was "While another person holds it up..." Hmph. So I enlisted help and got it put together.

Around this time Amilynne and I started having conversations something like this.

Me: I got a bike.

Amilynnne: It's not a bike, it has no wheels.

Me: It does have two pedals that cycle around.

Amilynne: It is not a bike. Quit calling it a bike. You are a liar.

Me: I'm not a liar. (Then, to piss her off...) I think I'll go make some s'mores.

Amilynne: S'mores?

Me: Yeah, but I think I'll use Fudgeshop cookies instead. (This brilliant idea is rightly attributed to Daryl, who made s'mores this way while camping, and I must say that it's better this way than with nasty grainy Hershey's chocolate.)

Amilynne: That's not s'mores. S'mores have chocolate bars and graham crackers. You're a liar.

Me: No, I'm toasting a marshmallow, and eating it with chocolate. It's s'mores.

(S'mores is a word that is not in the dictionary. Amilynne and I have both looked, I in my Webster's and she in her almighty Oxford American. Will someone tell me, please, why this word has been overlooked?)

Amilynne: You're a liar.

Me: Well, you claim you sell coffee, but it's really just milk. (Amilynne works for a certain Seattle-based coffee empire.)

Amilynne: Yeah, it's just milk. With a little coffee.

Me: Expensive milk with a little coffee. Yet it's supposedly coffee. You're a liar and a price gauger.

Amilynne: You're a liar.

Me: You're a liar.

And it disintigrates from there. I can't think of anything that can keep Amilynne busy for longer than an argument about semantics. There's something else she claims I lie about, but I can't think what it is at the moment, I'm sure it will come to me eventually.

Tonight I mixed Nutella with fondant to make some candy centers. At the outset of this break, I was sure that I would make chocolates, yet here it is, day 13, and none made yet. Blah. But I must say that the Nutella centers are glorious.

Christmas Break, Day 10

I sat down with 8 1/2 again to finish it. The movie is so bewildering until it finally starts to pull itself together and Fellini's genius is staring you in the face. Then as I was doing some dishes, I put it on again with the commentary track and learned a whole lot, like I already knew that Fellini would choose his actors for their looks, then have them say their lines in their own language, and dub in their voices later in Italian, but this commentary track pointed out that the studios at Cinecittà were built before sound movies and were therefore not soundproof, and so this voice dubbing thing was actually quite pragmatic. It is also why even the Italian actors' voices don't really seem to be coming from them all of the time, why, for example, Mastroiani's voice often seems so much larger than it should be, even though they matched the words to his lips pretty well. Anyway the film is delicious and worth watching so many times. And listening to the commentary, I realized that I had understood and followed along watching it just in Italian without subtitles just fine, even though it was confusing enough that I worried that I had missed something at the beginning. I know that in all reality, I really do understand Italian, but I look at watching a movie without subtitles as a proof and a test, and that always makes me a little nervous, like failure is immenent, and like I will suddenly lose it and be pulled back to the world of speaking only English.

I went to lunch with Katie--we just met at the food court of a mall, because niether of us would decide what we felt like eating--then we walked around the mall and shopped and chatted for a while. We went into this store that specializes in really garish things for pre-teen and teenage girls--rugs and pillows and handbags and the such, all with lots of fucsia feathers and sequins. They had a cool pillow, though, a Tootsie Pop, with a stick--I imagined myself bopping my students on their heads with it to keep them in line, the fantasy soon ended when I realized that their reactions in this situation would amount to pure chaos, and that eventually they would steal the pillow from me and bop each other, and possibly with the stick, not the pillow end. That wouldn't have ended well.

After that, I went to a karaoke party. Actually, when I got there, they were watching Napoleon Dynamite, which makes me laugh a lot, especially since Dad's from Preston, and it shows the spirit of the town well even if the film portrays everything stuck a little too much in the 80's. I have to say that the movie loses a lot on the small screen, because part of what makes it great is Napoleon's dance at the end, and a big part of that is him being blown up larger than life on a movie screen. At any rate, the party moved forward to karaoke, which proved quickly that there were really only two people at the party who could sing, (I was definitely among the non-singers) but we all had fun anyway.