a terrible horrible no good very bad day

today was hands-down the WORST day of teaching in my life. i wanted to quit. i cried in front of the other teachers who already have very little respect for me because of my race and age. the kids would not listen. ugh. but after staying an extra hour to finish paperwork and compose myself, all my students ran to the door to give me hugs and invite me over for a sleepover sometime. and then i realize that they are just 3 and 4 and 5. and tomorrow is a new day. here's the best quote of today:

elijah took his shirt off on the playground (?) and i sat him down to explain that we do not take our clothes off at school. ja'kaya said, "yeah, we don't take our clothes off cause if we did, we'd all look naaaaaaasty." probably.

the epic game

i've been bugging nate to write about his trip to texas....but no go. i figured it was worth a blog post though. we all know nate is married to me and espn, and naturally he jumped at the chance to get tickets last spring to the byu vs. oklahoma game in dallas. he told me it was the best day of his life (um, remember that one time we got married?). so, here it is in pictures...

nate also got his 2.43 seconds of fame when the tv camera panned over him. go cougs!

a visitor

nate's cousin, davia, came to chicago! she is basically living my dream and just traveling around right now. though we did have to work instead of play all day, it was fun to go out to dinner and walk around different parts of the city. we checked out some cute boutiques in wicker park and ate delish thai and italian food.

chicken tenders with gravy

that's what was for lunch at school today. you know the days of being so excited to get the cafeteria menu in elementary so you could plan out when you'd bring a lunch and when you'd indulge in the beauty of chocolate milk and crinkle-cut french fries? that was me at age 8. and now it's me at age 22. i have to model how to eat with good manners for my students, so i am required to at least put food on a plate with them. but, really? soggy microwaved chicken nuggets smothered in nasty bland gravy. one girl told her mom that she had gray chicken nuggets for lunch. and she spoke the truth. i didn't even try to tell that mother otherwise.

O

one of the things i have to do before we leave chicago is go to a taping of the oprah show. i must. i even applied for a job at her production company, harpo studios, before teaching caught my interest. preferably, i would like to go in december when she hands out free cars, vacuums, vacations, you know. so, i am now an official member of the oprah club and can apply to be on the show. while browsing oprah's online world, i clicked on the oprah store. what??! ridiculous. oprah has her own line of clothing engraved with an O. and dishes with an O. and flip flops with O's all over them.

just more proof of how she's taking over the world, one O flip flop at a time.

thoughts of a new teacher...

the smell of urine is becoming all too familiar

all my kids say "i gotta use it" when they've got to go to the bathroom. i asked T what he had to use and he said, "mannnnnnn i gotta use IT!"

me: D, eat your lunch boy
D: eat YOUR lunch girl!

they are so cute

want a laugh?

i was dying laughing at 12:34 am last night by myself at some of these random thoughts of a 25-35 year-old. so true.

I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

"Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...

It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

life lately

now that we are both adult working people who come home exhausted and/or stressed, i sometimes wish i had my carefree student life that didn't seem so carefree to me at the time. it was. so if that's you, savor it, ok? i know, like a billion people told me that and i didn't listen, so listen. i guess i just didn't realize how much life is dictated by jobs and vacation time and sick days and did you know that you get very little vacation time when you first enter the work force? i didn't. my english degree did not include that detail.

i'm not trying to be a downer though -- life is good. i went to my first teacher in-service this week with the funniest african american women you've ever met. our staff meetings are hilarious. people just stand up and sing or shout or say "praise jesus" or yell or dance. they asked me why i wasn't drinking coffee or tea one morning and i told them i'm a hot chocolate addict. the next morning there were packets of hot chocolate in the teacher room and my heart melted. next week we're having a soul food potluck...fried okra, fried catfish, fried chicken, and collard greens. gotta love it. this is where my days will be spent the next two years...

last night we did our favorite thing: walking downtown. we walked down the magnificent mile that really felt like 26 miles. but really, we love the city at night. it's beautiful.

i go to grad school two nights a week in the sketchiest neighborhood i've ever seen. we have security guards with bullet proof vests that escort us to our cars since the satellite location for our university is in the #2 highest crime area in chicago. really, it's not that bad but i laughed when my mom said, "do you feel safe walking out to your car?"

my lovely paris friend brittany sent me this today.
amen.
so beautiful that these are actually sold.
{that's dark chocolate}

i know, this is all random. but, cheers to anti-stress.

80 degrees no more

summer's winding down, and like always, i want to stretch it out much longer. i could definitely use one more beach day, one more book to read, one more barbeque, and one more reason to bask in the sun. i love fall, but i'm not ready for soup, jackets, and leaves yet.

goodbye, summer.

p.s. my first day as a teacher was a success. first night of grad school tomorrow...