because it's fun to start posts with "because"

so, exam week is over, but we still have one day of exams. That's hardly fair. Effing snow. I say fuggit, the theatre arts exam isn't that important, let's just skip it. But no. So I have kids writing an exam Monday afternoon, marks are due Tuesday morning, then we have probably Tuesday afternoon to 'prep' for semester 2, and then classes start Wednesday. Super. I still have no idea what I'm doing. Well, no, I have some idea, but no concrete plans. How hard can it be to get through 4 weeks and 3 days, really? Also, my prep class is moving to period 3, right before lunch, which is exciting. It's period 5 right now, and I generally feel like doing absolutely nothing by the time last period rolls around, so it's not a really productive time for me.

In other news...I have no other news. I was looking for a bit more feedback on the new colour scheme, but no news is good news, or you're all just too lazy to say anything. Except for the, yeah, one person who did comment. Thanks, Kim!.

For now, I have to go cook my sweetie some supper, and then just sit the hell down and relax for a bit. It is the weekend, after all. I have my very first baby shower tomorrow, I'm pretty excited for that. That's about the sum total of my plans for the weekend though. Finish marking exams, and relax some more. Sweet.

because you all want to know more about me

I can tell.

via PSMC, via GG, via Trinity.


- I am: sleepy.
- I know: enough about the English language that I'm annoyed by much of what I see / read on tv.
- I have: too much stuff.
- I wish: for something every time I notice the time is 11:11. I have my sister to thank for that.
- I hate: ignorant people.
- I miss: being small and carefree.
- I fear: being alone.
- I hear: the 3rd blizzard of the week raging outside.
- I search: for the good in people. It can take a while.
- I wonder: what it will be like to be a mom.
- I regret: not participating in much while I was in school.
- I love: my family.
- I ache: when I think about how little I can impact the really big issues in the world.
- I care: what people think of me, even though I know I shouldn't for the most part.
- I always: smile at people when I make eye contact. It's involuntary, and I hope people don't think I'm weird.
- I am not: a very good liar.
- I dance: like a moron, I'm fairly sure. but I have fun.
- I sing: very often, and pretty well, I think.
- I do not always: clean my fishtank as often as I should.
- I should not: spend so much time on the computer.
- I write: much less than I used to. I'll put a link back up to the writings I had posted a while back, on my other site.
- I win: at Scrabble and Scene It.
- I lose: patience quickly when I don't understand something.
- I confuse: my students' names sometimes, even when they've been in my class for a while. I feel badly about that.
- I listen: to cds obsessively when I buy them.
- I go: a little stir crazy when I'm here by myself with nothing to do.
- I am happy about: the way things are turning out for us so far.

because I can

needed a change, I suppose. May not quite be finished, but I think the change of colour scheme will keep me happy for a while. Make sure to reload to get all the new pretty stuff, and let me know what you think. As long as you think it's good. haha. No, really, I can handle well-said constructive criticism too.

snow? again? really?

That's just silly. We once again have the red screen of doom on the weather channel, calling for some ridiculous amount like 40cm to fall tomorrow. Luckily, it's starting tomorrow morning, so hopefully it will be finished by Monday morning, and I can go to work, and my sweet fiancé (who is choosing to risk it instead of go home early like last weekend) will be able to make the treck back to Freddy. Tomorrow will probably be dedicated to not much, sticking close to home and watching tv or movies. I have to clean the fish tank. Wooh!

I had a relatively productive day today. Did some dishes, went to school to photocopy my exams, got some groceries for here and some cleaning stuff for the new apartment. That took me a surprisingly long time. Oh, I also got new wipers for both of our cars, and some good winter wash. Mine claims to be good to -40, you know, the classic blue stuff, but it freezes on my windshield when I try to wash it, when it's nowhere near 40 below. So, I got the same wipers and wash as last year, the motomaster teflon winter stuff, it worked really well for me last winter.

I am greatly enjoying wearing overalls today, they're quite comfy with their lack of waist. In other baby news, I now have just under 10 weeks to go, a baby shower next weekend thrown by the (future) in-laws (mom and aunts), and picked out a crib and dresser for the nursery. That's all, I'm trying to keep the baby stuff on the preggo blog.

We, well, the fiancé and his burly friends and family, moved a bunch of large stuff to Fredericton, to the new place. I am now without, and not missing horribly, I'll say, the futon, the loveseat (which is a pullout, and weighs roughly 2.8 tonnes), the kitchen table and chairs, my regular desk, and the giant tv stand. Also a bunch of boxes of books and stuff, and the 2 bookshelves. We still have a lot of stuff though. People keep telling me that of course this is a great time to clean house, and I agree, and I do throw stuff out, but really and truly most of the stuff we have is useful. Like, I have a lot of clothes, yes, but I wear them all. I go through every now and then and prune out what I don't. We just have enough stuff that we could live in a house and not need to get much. One of the biggest pains in the ass to move is the fish, since I have to catch most of them and drain a bunch of the water out. I'm not going to catch Cletus this time, he can ride in the half-full tank. I think that will be much easier on both of us than me trying to catch him with my inadequately sized net, and him being in a bag not much bigger than him for any amount of time. He likes to hang out on the bottom, or wherever, so it should be ok. If anyone has any great fish moving tips, pass them along. I've done this before, and am better now than I was, but I'm sure there's a better way.

edit

apparently I was unclear in my post about that stupid anti-immigration flyer thing. Now my family thinks I'm being targeted by psychopaths. Have you never come out to find some random flyer on your car? If not, you are very fortunate indeed. Most people have. This is what happened here. The flyer had nothing to do with me personally, or my website, and I didn't think that I had implied that in any way, but just in case, here I am un-implying it.

that's all.

by the by, here's what he wrote back to me. I'm not even going to bother commenting, but I invite you to!



Dear (jallápenno):

Thank you for taking the time to express your views about our leaflet.

Fewer than 18 per cent of Canadians were born abroad. Europeans were the founding/settler people of Canada as we now know it. To say that everyone – and that includes the Natives, who migrated from Asia about 10,000 B.C. – came from somewhere else originally is to say nothing.

There’s a rule of nature. If you don’t control the territory you live in, you won’t have it for long. The Natives were overwhelmed by the newcomers. The reality is that they no longer control the land they once lived in. We have a choice. We can continue to say, “come one, come all,” despite our high unemployment rate. The result, according to Stats Canada, is that by 2050, people of European descent will be a minority. In other words, others, probably East Indians and Chinese will be the majority and, as such, willl impose their ways. If that’s okay with you, do nothing, because that will be the world your children and grandchildren will live in. If it bothers you, join us and seek real immigration reform and a Canada First policy.


Paul Fromm

CFIRC

help!

I have internet, but messenger won't sign in! I feel alone! I have today off, as predicted, because of the wicked-ass blizzard blowing itself all over the place here. The roads are actually pretty clear in front of my place, but that's because the plows go by roughly every 10 minutes. It pays to live across from the fire department.

Anyway, feel free to email me, I'm lonely. Still marking, will finish today, and will further impress myself with my Excel mastery while I create my marking systems. Free hot chocolate and popcorn to whomever decides to drop by! I can pretty much guarantee I'll be here to welcome you, I doubt there's much going on in the hub city today. Plus I don't want to shovel out my car.

I'm watching an amazing show about extreme surgeries, and this poor guy got his whole head and face really badly burned, so they're doing grafts, and it's really gross, but I'm interested to see how it turns out.

it never ends

well, it'll have to end after Wednesday, except for the exams, but there is just far too much marking crap in this teaching job. Especially for English, because there's really no other way to see if the little bastards are learning anything, if not by getting them to do things that I then have to mark. Anyway, I'm hoping to get finished up this latest bunch of stuff today so that I can focus on the horribly complicated exam exemptions process that we're test-driving this year. I understand that of course, there's no other time of year when we could really figure out who's exempt other than now, at exam / end of semester time, but it's just already such a busy time of year.

anyway, on a totally unrelated note...we went to see In Good Company last night, and it was pretty good. A little different than I expected, funny parts but not overall hilarious, but good. We had to park roughly a mile away from the entrance, because there was some kind of conference going on at Crystal Palace. So, went to the movie, enjoyed it, came out to find some hate literature on my car. I was astounded. I visited the website and sent them an email telling them how ridiculous they are, and I encourage you to do the same. Apparently they forgot the part of this country's history where THEIR relatives immigrated from somewhere less wonderful, and were allowed to stay and build a life here. I reminded them of that, but honestly, I'm not expecting much understanding from these folks. It just left a bad taste in my mouth at the end of the night to come out and find that crap on my car. I was surprised that it would even be legal to do so, and sad to be reminded that such small minds exist in today's society.

I'll get down off the soap box now.

marking!

I *finally* finished marking my students' short stories. It took me a really, really long time, because a) I hate marking, and b) the damn kids can't write. I had a few that were really quite good, but so, SO many more that were poorly written in every way. Lame plots, very little detail / thought, and enough spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors to make any literate person vomit. I had to keep taking breaks. Anyway, I won't go into details about the travesties against the English language that I have been forced to witness, but suffice to say I had to just stop correcting a lot of them and try to muddle my way through to attempt to at least get the gist of the plot.

I just looked over at my aquarium and my giant algae eater is on the side of the tank facing me, and he scared the living crap out of me. The light is off, and his underside is lighter with crazy labyrinthy patterns on it, and ... he's enormous. Scary. It's a very pet-centred desk I have here, both of my cats are currently laying in front of the monitor, which makes it tricky to type this post.

What else is new. We have 2 weeks of school until exams, which is fun, because I've never prepared an English exam before. I'm hoping to get some help in that area from the other grade 9 teachers, and hopefully have a look at old exams for the 113 English and theatre arts classes. There's then a week of exams, 2 turn around days, and then 4 weeks and 2 days until March Break. That's when I'm done like dinner. Ack.

I need a hair cut, that's pretty exciting. I think that's it though. I need to go to bed; I've been staying up late all week for some reason, and it's definitely catching up with me.

useful info

speed up Firefox, if you're on broadband.

happy new year!

I have to say though, I've never really gotten the excitement about new years. I've even had a couple of years when I just didn't bother to stay up. Granted, those were years I was spending the break with my parents in PA, but still. As I get older and more mature (haha), I just don't really feel the need to wait for one more excuse to get blitzed and fend off slobbering strangers.

That said, this past 12 months has been quite eventful. As I was planning out my list of what has gone on, I noticed that Tirexl has beat me to the punch, but here is my list of what made this year so much more ... interesting? than years psst.

1. I fully accepted the possible fate of continuing to work in a position I didn't consider my ideal, only to be told later that day that it was no longer available to me


2. I got my dream job a few weeks later


3. My parents moved back from the states to the much more visit-friendly Halifax


4. Even though I had my job lined up, the fact that I didn't know exactly what I was teaching made it possible for me to do basically nothing the whole summer


5. Also making that possible, the fact that I found out I was pregnant in late July, and was rendered unproductive for a couple of months


6. Even though that was terrifying at first, it seems to be working out really well


7. My sweetie got an engineering job that he really, really likes


8. We got engaged


9. We started looking for a house. We've put that on hold for now, but it's definitely a big thing.


10. I can look at my fiancé and smile at how in love I am


11. I can look at my tummy and smile at the giant alien baby growing in there, who seems to be trying to escape, or perhaps doing kung fu.

Made for some stress, I'll tell ya, but it's all going pretty well now. The alien baby thumps my innards as we speak, and the fiancé is happily playing NHL 2005. Things are good. I'm happy.