book reviews, long overdue

The Power of One: So I totally have a crush on Peekay. Too bad he's fictional. This is one of the most inspirational books I've ever read without even an ounce of cheese. I could read it over and over again.

A Walk in the Woods: So funny. It made me want to hike the beginning of the Appalachain trail over and over again just so I can meet some of these people who try it out.

It's going to make you have, like, you know, a heart thing. Like when your heart stops beating and you, you know, die?

You mean a heart attack?

Yeah, I think that's it.

Slaughterhouse Five: Very unconventional war book. I think I'd read more history books if they were written like this. Although I couldn't really get into it as much as I wish I had.

Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Eh. It was alright. Nothing is really as developed as I would have liked, so it's kind of a choppy read. But I guess that's what I should have expected from a reporter. They find one source that says what they like and move on. Funny thing is, that's what he makes fun of the whole book. Oopsies.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Sad story, but still kind of a feel-good book at the same time. Well-written. I'd recommend it.

Don't try This at Home - The Physics of Hollywood Movies: Every physics teacher should own this book. It's the best resource I've found in a really long time. Don't read it if you don't like movies to be spoiled.

The Teaching Gap: Totally changed the way I teach. I'm trying to talk my roommate into reading it. It makes me want to get into curriculum development.

more stuff i like

mainly because it's easier to decide what i want for Christmas than it is to figure out what to buy Brandon for christmas. Seriously.

This Jacket:

and a sweater like unto this one:

and i kind of like these boots:

actually, i love these boots.

and i need to read this book:

and this is one of my favorite movies of all time. Seriously. Everyone should watch it. Who could not love Danny Deckchair?

And this book has been on my list for a very long time, and i haven't read enough teaching books lately.

and i would like anything of the lavender vanilla variety from bath and body works. hand soap, pillow spray, hand cream, whatever.

three day weekends

oh, how i love you.

okay, mom

Okay, mom. Here's a partial birthday list:

From American Eagle (and all on sale):

This Sweater (xs):


These Pants (size 2 long):

This shirt (xs)

This shirt:

And this shirt:

Then I would also like these sheets. 800 Thread count in light blue for a full-sized bed.

And maybe a blanket like this for my bed:

This mattress topper is TOTALLY on sale. Almost 80% off!!!

And I could also use a large chest for storing my shoes, and another bookcase for my books. There's a chest that I found at Target for $60, but I can't find it online.

And I need a plain colored turtleneck. You can pick the color. Anything but black, because I have black already.

And I would really like to read this book Emotional Intelligence.

And I would pay good money for a batch of your eclairs.

Unfortunately, Anthropologie won't let me copy their pictures right now. But they're expensive anyway.

If you need more ideas, i've got plenty. Thanks, mom!

facebook

so we had an assembly today dedicated to facebook, in which our school counselor informed us all that the biggest danger of facebook is your pride. then she showed us this video. I just about died. then she showed us this video and then this. a little bit funny, but so sad.

dear madre la bomba

thanks for the gift card. it has been put to good use. and by "good use" i mean i bought a pair of completely unnecessary rain boots. but they will keep my feet warm and dry as i make the long hike from my car to my classroom on cold rainy mornings.

you're the best.

love, poodle

birthday list

my birthday is less than a month away. and besides having a joint birthday party with my roommate, i also get my very own personal party. i'm pretty sure it's going to involve sushi, bananas foster chimichangas, and a pinata. and probably some other stuff. i'm still deciding.

in addition to this joint party and personal party, i will be buying myself some presents. because i deserve them. these gifts might include:

• an awesome pair of brown knee boots
• a memory foam mattress topper
• sweaters from Anthropologie
• a nice pair of flats to wear with my winter work pants
• a new pair of winter work pants. preferably from Anthropologie
• blackout blinds for my room
• a light blue throw blanket for my bed
• some tights to wear with skirts in the wintertime
• listerine

name calling

So I have a student named Jeff. I call him Betty. To my surprise, he still likes me. The end.

congrats, baby and little brandon.

my baby sister is engaged! Stop by her blog (and his blog) and tell them congratulations. and check out the gorgeous ring she designed for herself.

i am most especially happy about this wedding because i get to help pick the bridesmaid dresses, and i pretty much love any excuse to buy a pretty dress.

my book came!

yesterday. in the mail. a week earlier than they said. i'm already loving them.

great news

My department head came into my class the other day for a formal evaluation. Just to make sure I'm actually teaching. She filled out an evaluation form, on which she gave me ALL excellent ratings. She has never given a new teacher excellent ratings on everything. Pretty good for my self esteem.

My school gave me my very own tablet laptop. WHOO!!! This will be put to great use. (Namely, Office reruns, Facebook, blogging, etc.) Haha.

4-day weeks make me happy.

weekend recap

Even though I had a 3-day weekend, it was jam packed. I'm not even rested.

Friday, I went to the mall with Sarah, and showed her the beauty of MAC cosmetics. She's hooked. Our neighbor went ballistic when my roommate parked in her spot. I told her she was acting like a child, then ran inside and locked the door, because it's really not a good idea to piss off an enormous angry woman.

Saturday I graded lots and lots of lab reports, ran errands, then watched the DC United soccer team lose. (Hi, Justin!) I'm pretty convinced that soccer is the best sport on the planet. How is it that every other country figured that out before we did?

Sunday was church, an awesome dinner of frozen pizza and peanut butter rice krispie treats. My roommate invited everyone she knows to our house on Sunday night. Then she left in the middle of the evening because there was another party that sounded like more fun. This girl gets stranger every day.

Yesterday I continued grading, planned a lesson, went to lunch with my roommate, and hosted the best FHE all year. Dodgeball was a hit. I am now eagerly awaiting my amazon delivery of:

Don't try this at home: The Physics of Hollywood Movies
The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager
and Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity

I'm so excited to read!!!

Books... because I have nothing else to say

Bold those you’ve read.
Italicize books you have started but couldn’t (or just didn't) finish.
Add an asterisk* to those you have read more than once.
Underline those on your To Be Read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange - underline
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible*
1984 - underline
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray - seriously SO GOOD
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Ubervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things - underline
A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - underline
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five - strange, but pretty good
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - underline
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - gag. never read it.
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
The Agony and the Ecstasy - reading it now
Feed - best book ever
And so many more...

weekend recap

So even though I couldn't make it to the Turkish festival, it was still a good weekend. Friday I participated in our school's homecoming festivities. The soccer game was great, and we won in overtime. I even had time to watch a movie when I got home Friday. Saturday, I went to a picnic where I consumed way too many caramel apples and donuts, ran into someone I used to know, then went shopping with friends. I bought a skirt on sale for $10 at Banana Republic. I'm wearing it right now. Very cute. I tried to begin the comments that I have to write on each student by tomorrow morning, but got pretty much zero work done. Oops.

Sunday was church, then dinner with friends, and a nap. Awesome.

bummer

So I tried to go to a bluegrass concert last night, but my neighbors took their dear sweet time getting ready, and it sold out before we got there.

And then I was supposed to go to the Turkish festival this weekend with my Turkish friend and his Turkish friends. But then he remembered that the festival is Sunday, and not Saturday like he said.

But it's homecoming weekend. And instead of a homecoming football game, there's a homecoming soccer game. Pretty awesome.

busy bee

Okay, so seriously, I'm busy. I'm averaging 4.5 hours of sleep a night (besides weekends, obviously), and it's not just because I'm working all the time. There's the weekly Office party (as in the TV show, not a work party), way too much shopping, making friends, blah, blah, blah.

So here are a few things that have happened in the past week:

• One of my students got his feet stuck in his lab stool. He started falling over, grabbed his neighbor, and hopped back and forth with the stool between his legs. I'm still laughing.
• One of my students told me that I'm "doing much better" at explaining concepts. Whatever that's supposed to mean.
• Every single student passed my first test. I love these kids.
• I am going to a friend's cabin this weekend to watch conference. I realize that it's just the same watching it at home, but it sounds way cooler to say I watched it at a cabin.
• We started our Movie Physics unit today. The kids love it. Hallelujah for that. It should last about 2 months.
• My pink fur dice were lost in the scavenger hunt we did yesterday in one of my classes. Sad.
• It's Friday. I'm going home.
  

good news

I got to watch The Office last night. WHOO!!! I skipped out of back-to-school night early. Hehe. They loved me anyway.

And then I showed up at school at 6:55 this morning and had a student sitting outside my door waiting for me. (They had their first test today.)

And we're doing an awesome lab in physics next week.

I need a nap.

a few more things

• One of my students had a bottle of fart spray in his back pack yesterday. It exploded during class.
• Tomorrow night is back-to-school night. It is also the season premiere of The Office. They obviously did not ask for my opinion when scheduling back-to-school night.
• Things I lost in my move: a skirt, half of my sanity, and a wedding gift I bought back in June. I suck.
• I am in charge of family home evening in our ward. So anyone who has any ideas (ahem, Katie) please help me. I'm desperate.
• Today we had a delayed opening at school. Great chance to sleep in. Except that the academic dean scheduled a meeting with me for 7:00 am. AM meaning, in the morning. She didn't even show up.
  
• We played a totally awesome game in my physics class today. They loved it. Huge success.
  

okay, fine

Katie's right. I'm not nearly as busy or important as I make myself sound. So to fill you in on what's happening:

• The students at this school are not at all intimidated by adults. Not even a little. I think I like that.
• My job is less stressful, but much busier than I thought it would be. And lots of fun
• I have a bright orange LuvSac in my living room. That's about all I can say about that. I'm working on a plan to move it to the basement without hurting my crazy roommate's feelings.
• I love Loehmann's with all my heart and soul.
• I officially have a retirement account! And even though my retirement money is taken before I get my paycheck, it is still significantly larger than last year's paycheck. And I am paying significantly less in rent, and significantly less on food (since I eat enormous lunches every day, courtesy of BS.)*
• The weather is beautiful.
  
• My roommate thinks I'm totally vain and materialistic. She's probably right.
• My bangs are finally long enough to wear without getting laughed at. I love them.
• In one week, I have cut my daily commute from 30 minutes down to 20 minutes. Backroads are my new best friends.
• I bought myself a beautiful coat from Anthropologie as a back-to-school gift to myself. Totally on sale, and probably the prettiest thing I've ever owned. I also bought a $200 dress on sale for $30. Bargains are also my best friends.
• I went to Ann Taylor Loft and bought a pair of pants, a shirt, three necklaces, and two pairs of earrings. Whoever can guess closest to how much my total bill was wins a prize. And by prize I mean the glory of knowing you're a better guesser than anyone else.

BS is my school. Haha.

sorry for the lapse

I'm keeping busy. But for those who are curious, my school is awesome, my students are brilliant and funny, and my apartment is starting to look cute.

That's all I have time for .