Man oh man...

My head hurts...
I just spent the last hour looking around to see if teachers are needed in the states that I'm interested in living in... ugh I can't even make that sentence make sense now... hehe... k here's what I've come up with so far...

States I've been to and know I'd like to live in:
*Minnesota
*Wisconsin
*Colorado
*Wyoming
*Montana
*Texas

States that I haven't been to but I think I'd like to live in:
*Michigan (maybe - need to go there first)
*Washington
*Oregon
*Nevada (maybe Reno - cousin there)
*Alaska
*Northern California?

As for the number of teaching jobs available... well... yeah... *sigh*
I signed up for two different free sites to search for teaching jobs:
ABC Teaching Jobs
Education America

There are so many sites to look at... every state, school district...
It's going to be a lot of work, but I WILL find a job somewhere :) I think it helps that I'm willing to relocate.

I'm not the only one

Just in the Ed. Dept we had 4 people out sick yesterday... Some with stomach-issues and some with head-coldy issues like me.

Geeze....

Germs = suxor.

Flackity flack...

Well people are glad we made the trip safely, but they're informing me that I'm insane/stupid to have gone in the first place.

Let me just say I knew perfectly well we had NO business whatsoever going, but since the other two weren't about to drop it - and I wasn't sure they'd be able to say, "Ok, this is too much we need to stop" – and because if anything had happened to them I would have been devastated... I went. I drove and I did my darndest to make sure they got there and back safely... and I succeeded. And the Assoc. Director of Res. Life thanked me today for making sure we got there and back safely.

When we got to the hotel that first night it was interesting to see how each of us dealt with the day...

Amy kept herself busy calling people, ironing and organizing for the next day.

Aya got in her pj's and watched Resident Evil. She says all the stress and violence of the movie makes her feel like her problems aren't nearly as bad.

I called my mom to tell her where we were, popped on my iPod and lay down on the bed to relax. It made me feel better, but I still wasn't able to sleep. I think I got about 2 hours of sleep, off and on, that night. My mind was replaying the day’s events, thanking the Lord we were safe, and wondering what the next day was going to be like.

More...

It took us 16 hours (minus spending the night in a hotel) to get there and only 9 hours to get back.

I hardly slept the first few nights, which is probably why I have a cold. Started feeling icky Saturday morning and it's just gotten worse.

I got back home at 11pm last night and took two Nyquil. Woke up at noon today, made myself eat so I could take more medicine, went back to bed. Woke up at 4pm, made myself get up and stay up so I could sleep tonight.

Had a Hall Council Exec and a HC hall-wide meeting tonight. Both were VERY brief. It's good to be the president :)

I've got class and work tomorrow. Didn't make it through all of the site revisions for tomorrows class... maybe I can do a couple more tomorrow morning.

Time for more sleeeeeeep!

Home.... safe.... exhausted

G'night.

Thank you, thank you, thank you OMG thank you...

4:20am - Woke up
4:30am - Called Aya & Amy to see if we were REALLY going to do this
5:30am - Left town - roads were not-so-good just outside of town but got better as we went
8:00am - Stopped for breakfast
10:30am - Arrived in the cities
11:50am - Reached the other side of the cities - lots of snow and traffic at a stand-still in places

The afternoon drive through Wisconsin was spotty, but generally not that bad. We had snow, sleet, rain, hail... and variations of all the above.

5:00ish - We got almost to Wausau, WI (about 100 miles from our destination) and we hit blizzard-type weather... We stopped at an Applebee's so I could take a break from driving and we were hoping the weather would get better. Left Applebee's at 6:00pm and it took us over an hour to get 30 miles. I couldn't see the road for large periods of time, there were cars/trucks/vans in the ditch every 5 minutes... then I literally couldn't see anything because the road hadn't been plowed recently, the wind was blowing more snow across the road, we were headed into the driving snow, and an 18-wheeler that had JUST passed us was off the side of the road, jack-knifed and I declared "THAT'S IT! We're pulling off I can't see the freaking road and there's a sign for a hotel." And we did. Our guardian angels were DEFINITELY with us. I have never been so scared in my life. We made it to the hotel and I was shaking all over. We're in the room now making lots of phone calls to reschedule interviews, checking emails, checking weather and road conditions....

UGH!
I tried so hard to talk them out of this trip and I probably should have stayed at home, but I couldn't just drop out and make them go on their own... It sounds weird but if something had happened to them I would have felt so horrible.... and I knew I was risking my own neck... but for most of the trip it really wasn't that bad.... Just WI is freaking awful.

UGH! UGH! UGH!

Anywho... We're here. We're safe.
I am going to try and relax, take a hot shower and go to sleep. They'll both be running around the room but my adrenaline is starting to wear off and it has been a LONG freaking day.... Sleep is sounding so good right now.

We'll most likely be up at 4am tomorrow to check weather and road conditions. It could potentially take us up to 4 hours to get there.... but I'm seriously holding my ground if it's anything at all like it is now we're not going ANYWHERE. If they don't have jobs they can all come stay in my one-bedroom apt. At least we'll all be ALIVE.

That's what's important.

Running away....

Is a good way to avoid people, places and things.

Not that it ever solves anything...

/ponder

A bald eagle just flew over my apartment as I was walking to my door.

Too much snow?!?

Would I ever say such a thing?!?!
Could it be?!?!
Whatever would make me even THINK about saying such a thing?!?!?!

Well.....

8 to 10 inches or so over the last week = not so bad. Mostly plowed or melted off the roads.

Ok....

So now the forecast is calling for another 6 to 12 inches on Wednesday/Thursday and I'm supposed to be driving 9 hours to Wisconsin on Thursday.

*ponder*

Maaaaaaaybe.... I might possibly be thinking about-thinking about saying there might be a little, tiny bit too much snow in the forecast?

Maybe.

Furballs...

I miss this...

Oscar Party

So... as president of Birch Hall Council I am in charge of certain hall activities. Last night was our Oscar Party. We didn't have a huge turn-out, but I think the people that did come enjoyed themselves :)

And who didn't laugh out loud when Will & Jada's son Jaden went racing to the microphone, leaving Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin in the dust?! Even his dad busted out laughing. And when Jaden read ahead on the prompter but kept his cool, joking about it... hehe soooo cute!

Awesomeness!

Well Mother Nature Finally decided to snow... and she is SNOWING!
/dance
/party
/weeeeee!

Saturday it started showing...


Sunday, when I woke up to this...


I did a happy dance :)

Of course that's probably because all I had to do was uncover my car.... not plow the parking lot or driveway at my apartment. The owners were out there doing that.

And this morning... I got up and there's another 2+ inches on my car and it's still snowing.

Wooty woot woot!

Something new...

Loralee (aka: Looney Tunes) has this on her site and I really liked the idea.

All the songs in this playlist are songs that make me feel a certain way... Nostalgic I guess... they take me back to a certain time :)

My music taste is so eclectic I decided to go for a certain sound so as not to shock those who listen ;)

And HIYA Libby :) I miss you too....

Interview went really well... you're right it wasn't demanding. They're doing a background check and waiting for my references... but it looks like I'll start subbing in the next couple of weeks!

Wahooo!

Wikipedia... you've been shunned

Yepper...
Accourding to THIS article: "Vermont's Middlebury College has banned the use of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as an acceptable source of academic information for students..."

Interesting...

So this weekend was crazy-cool-busy.
I worked on stuff for my online class on Saturday morning, then from noon-6 I helped Res. Life with their Carousel stuff... It was super-crazy, especially at the start when I didn't really know what I was doing. Once I figured out a system I spent the rest of the day playing catch-up, but it made Sunday much easier :)

Saturday night I had a few of my former RA pals come over... former RA's... not former pals... *ponder* Anywho...
Renata, Chris (and fiance), Doug, Steve and I all played games and watched a DVD of Jeff Dunham - a comedian/ventriloquist. I'm not usually one for stand-up but he was actually pretty funny.

Sunday night bowling - first 3 games went pretty well, even though I was exhausted. But then the Captain decided we should go ahead pre-bowl for next week, since most of us are unavailable. UGH. I bowled horrrrrribly. It was really bad. I was SO freaking tired and it showed in my scores. *hangs head in shame*

Ah well...

Monday evening I helped Aya with her Birch Hall Staff Murder-Mystery-Dinner... I prepared food, served and helped clean up. It was actually a lot of fun, listening to the story and watching the "characters." I've always wanted to do one... I think I might have one for my birthday this year!

Yesterday I got a call from the Subbing place saying that they might be hiring again and I've got an interview scheduled for Friday. Eeeeep! Keep your toes crossed that I get it... pretty please?

Scissor Happy!

I was getting tired of cutting my hair every 3-4 months because it grows so fast... so I decided to teach it a lesson! yeah... That's why I had the lady chop off 4.5 inches... which somehow turned out to be closer to 5 inches by the time she was done going back and forth chopping a little bit more off each time.

hehehehe

I'm bald!

Ah well... it does grow quite fast :)

In other news... I volunteered to help Res Life out with their Carousel process this weekend - they are screening 72 applicants for RA and PAA positions (for next year). 36 today and 36 tomorrow. Basically I'll be handing out name tags and then making sure all the paperwork gets into the right folders as they go to different places (interviews and group activities). I'm a "paper monkey" to put it nicely ;)

Sizzle?

*cough*

So yeah... uhm...

Hypothetically speaking...

If a person were to set up a computer that had been sitting in storage for several months - plug this computer in - turn this computer on and have the following happen:

1. Computer turns on and fan begins blowing
2. Computer begins to make a strange sizzling sound
3. Computer turns itself off but emits an odd smell
4. Computer refuses to turn back on

Would you think, hypothetically, that this computer may have fried something?

hehe

*sigh*

SO not my fault.

Hypothetically...

Life = Odd

So a lady at work took one of those Tickle IQ tests and wanted me to take it so we could compare. After spending the last 4 hours working on the same assignment for my online class I decided to take the IQ test. Anything would be fun at this point. According to "them" I scored a 136, like I'd pay to see my results if I scored a 2... like I'd pay to see them ever...

Anyway, I really had no idea what it meant to have a 136 IQ so I AltaVista'd it... and found the website of this guy: Eric Haller. I liked the look of his blog so I started looking around and then I found the two magic words: New Zealand. Apparently he was down there for a month (during 2004) - the same time I was down there.

Odd.

MEH

That's what our bowling shirts say on the front.
On the back: "It's a bowling thing..."
And on the sleeves our nick-names. Mine is: Mother Gutter

*grin*

Having trouble sleeping again. Dunno why this happens from time to time. Usually it has to do with stress, but I'm hardly stressed atm.

When I try counting sheep I start thinking about how much I miss this:

Ponderings...

Sometimes I find myself wondering "How on earth did I get this job?"

I have no formal training in computers. My only courses on computers are the typing class I took in High School and the Intro to Computers I took at the University of North Texas ("this is a computer, this is a mouse, this is how you turn the computer on").

How did I get this job? Well in the Fall of 2002 I was in a class called Pedagogy. We spent a class period in the Ed Lab and after the lady (who had my current job) was done explaining things people had questions. For some reason it just made sense to me and I helped the person to the right of me, then the person to the left, the person behind me... next thing I knew I was running around the lab helping most of the other students. The lady in charge of the lab asked me if I wanted a job in the Spring... I was like... a job? Working with computers? Seriously? I can do that.... And I did. I began working in the lab in the Spring of 2003 and worked through the end of Summer 2004 when I left to go Student Teaching.

I came back to work on my Masters in January of 2005 and asked her if she still had a spot in the lab for me and she said yes. I worked in the lab that Spring and in the middle of the summer when she left I found myself taking over for her.

*boggle*

85% of what I know about computers I learned on my own or from necessity to help someone else.

I've learned quite a bit in Dr. M's classes... a lot of that has been on rhetoric and web content and such...

And now I find myself helping fellow students and faculty members with a multitude of computer, printer, fax, copier, projector, software, email, chat, etc problems/questions. People with PhD's asking me how to do something. heh... It boggles the mind. Truly.

What I'm afraid of is: When/if I get hired for a teaching job and they see computers on my resume and they expect me to handle all the techy stuff for the school. I feel ok in saying I'm comfortable with various software, but by no means am I an expert on the hardware. There's always been other people that have done that.

/sigh

Maybe I'll go get another Masters or a PhD in Educational Technology.

Records

So here's the box I re-packed my parents record collection into (minus about 10 goodies that I kept out for my own enjoyment):


I found a few treasures amongst their collection....

Mama Cass :)


And this one I'm particularly excited about, Leonard Nimoy:


Why? you ask... was I so excited about a record of his?
Well... I'll show you:


*giggle*

And if you've never had the pleasure... allow me to introduce you:


Say what you will... I think it's genius. I laughed so hard I cried the fist time... honest.

July 21, 2007

It's about time! I know I'm not alone in my impatience... a large portion of the world is waiting to read what happens in the end....

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows!