Sunday: Day 27

27 more days until the wedding. It has been wonderfully cool and cloudy today. Yesterday it was so hot in the house while we were packing, but today is perfect stay-inside weather. I packed up our china, all of our bar glasses (we have tons!) and some more of the office. We have already gone through all of our small book boxes, plus 3 we bought today. Hopefully, Paul the moving man will bring us some more tomorrow because we need them! I also went through 140 sheets of newsprint just packing the china and glasses. At $17 a box, hopefully the second box I bought today will last for the rest of the things we need to pack up. The final box tally at the end of the night is 27 and we haven't even done the bedroom, kitchen or most of the stuff in the living room.

Room Status
Office -- Partially Done
Kitchen -- not begun
Bedroom -- not begun
Dining room -- barware and china packed
Living Room -- not begun

Tomorrow: Paul comes over early with boxes and we pack pack pack all day long!

Missed one already

Well, I managed to miss one already. Got so busy packing and then watching episodes of The Shield with John, I forgot to blog Saturday! As a make-up, I shall do two today.

Day 28: Saturday AKA Flag Day

Packed 14 boxes of books today. My books are done, John has 5 more bookcases to do. Its going to be a long process. While I took an afternoon nap, John grilled chicken and made a delicious rice/spinach/tomato/goat cheese dish. Yum. We then watched 4 episodes of The Shield, our Netflix obsession. I love this show, if you haven't watched it, check it out.

29 Days until the wedding.

Today was one of the "10 best days of the year" according to the weather caster on the news. Yesterday was another of those days. Of course I am too sick to appreciate them! Although, John and I did go down to Thayer St. for some dinner. We had REAL frozen yogurt (as in yogurt that has been frozen) with raspberries and then I had a slice of Nice Slice pizza. We spent some time walking up and down Thayer in the nice cool air. It was a pretty nice night.

Tomorrow, we begin to pack. I HATE packing. It will be nice to have some help this time though. Its not just my stuff (actually most of it isn't my stuff) so we'll be packing together. It should be easier tomorrow since it is going to rain.

Two moves ago I wrote this: My Stuff = Me

Thirty Days and counting

Today is June 12, exactly 30 days until John and my wedding. I have decided that I am going to TRY to blog each of these thirty days. It is the longest blogging commitment I have made and it may be difficult given our unknown living situation for the next few weeks. I am going to try though.

So the events of Day 30. Woke up at 5 am with a horrible sore throat. Spent most of the morning trying to swallow tylenol and gargling salt water. Around 2:30 John took me to the doctor where I found out I have pharyngitis. He is so sweet, he even remembered to ask the doctor for liquid antibiotics b/c I am unable to swallow pills right now. I waited in our super hot car because my fever made air conditioning unbearable while he got my drugs at CVS. I came home and did some shots of Tylenol, Robitussin and Zithromax and slept most of the afternoon. Now I am sadly wide awake, but at least my throat feels a bit better, must be the tylenol. Once I finish this I am going to do another shot of the good stuff, chased by some Robitussin (not really sure why...doc said to though) and hopefully I'll nod off for another 5-8 hours.

A word on throat pain. I think in the list of the 10 worst pains, throat pain ranks right up there with eye pain and back pain. At least when you have pain in your hands or feet or knees, etc. you can avoid using them. You can't avoid using your throat. Two very necessary things that happen all of the time involve your throat; breathing and swallowing. Today I found myself wishing for one of those sucker tubes they use at the dentist to get rid of the saliva in my mouth. Anything (including spitting...which I hate to do b/c its gross) would be better than the torture that is swallowing right now. That may be an overshare. I promise the next 29 entries won't be so gross. Time for drugs and sleep (I hope!)

Friday Fun

So here I sit in class while my physics kids take a test on Forces and Energy. They started the day by doing a lab practical. I love this lab. They have to calculate how high to drop a Barbie attached to a spring (bungee jump!) so that she comes within 4 cm of the table without hitting. All of the groups got within 4 cm except one who totally botched it. I gave them 4 out of 5 anyway.


One thing that I'd like to note is that my students think I live in some sort of cave and that I don't have access to radio or TV. Today, as on many days, they started singing a song (I work at a performing arts school) and when I scolded them for getting it stuck in my head, they were shocked that I had even heard the song!

At our school assemblies twice a week the kids play songs before and after the meeting starts over the sound system in the theater. I have heard SOOOOO many songs that I think my colleagues would be shocked by if they knew what the song was actually saying. I also think that the kids don't really know what some of the songs are saying and just like them b/c they are popular. Its not really any different from when I was in high school (which to my kids amazement was 10 whole years ago! I am ancient!)

I am finally beginning to understand the term "generation gap."

What DOES the end of the year feel like?

It doesn't feel like I only have to teach for 7 more class days. I feel like that in previous years the end of the school year has felt more...I don't know, final. This year I don't feel that. I am just as busy as I have ever been and there is no end-of-the-year relief. I have a hypothesis as to why I feel this way.

Final Exams. We don't give them at my current school. The school year has no finality to it for me because well, I don't get a nice relaxing exam week. For students, finals are a stressful time of the year. As a college student, I always got more sleep during finals (because I didn't have classes) but I felt a lot of stress while studying. As a teacher, finals are GREAT! You don't have to teach and really all you are doing is waiting around for exams to grade.

Granted, I don't particularly like grading, and writing comments is the bane of my existence but the leisurely pace of my days during finals is something I miss.

This year, I think part of it also has to do with how busy I am in other parts of my life. I am away every weekend from now until mid-June and I am planning a wedding. We are also moving and as the move consultant at Gentle Giant Movers (underwriters of NPR...we are such liberals we even get our movers from NPR) said, "New jobs, interstate move and entering the legal state of matrimony...holy cow you are one busy couple."

At least I am not bored.

Ice Ice Baby...in my classroom?

This morning as I headed out the door I grabbed my light jacket and headed out to the car. It was chilly, but I figured it'd warm up by the afternoon and the light jacket wouldn't even be needed. Thank goodness I brought the jacket, it was colder in the academic school building than it was outside (outside temp 48 degrees F.) I wore my jacket all day, went to the faculty lounge twice just to hang out because it was a bit warmer in there, and listened to kids complain about the cold all day. They were right, it was freezing.
Apparently the heating element is broken on our heater and the school can't afford to fix it just yet. So they pretend that its fixed by running the blowers all day (spewing cold air) and claiming that its working. I think they figure it'll get warmer soon enough and they can wait until the big bucks roll in from summer programs to fix it. Meanwhile, I'll be wearing multiple layers and gloves.

Can a teacher have senioritis?

Today I opened my planner, started filling in what I am going to do each day for my next unit, when the tests are going to be and *BAM* I ran out of pages. That's right, only 37 more days (including weekends) until summer vacation. I am not going to get nearly as far as I wanted to so I have to start budgeting my time.

Somehow, just seeing that the end of the year is that close triggered my teacher-senioritis. I have a countdown on my Google home page, I have a countdown written in my daily planner, and uh, let's see...I have a countdown in my lesson planner too. I am just a little excited for summer. While I do have a lot going on this summer (wedding, moving, honeymoon in Oregon) this happens every year. I am antsy for summer and all of the awesomeness that goes with it. I don't even mind that I only get paid for 9 months of work a year (spread out over 12 so I always get a check..but still) because summer is SOOOO worth it! Soon, I won't have to teach all day and then bring home a giant stack of lab reports or tests to grade. Soon, I will be able to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Soon, I won't have to spend my Sunday morning at the Church of the Holy DETENTION (yeah, that's what I have to do this Sunday from 8am-10:30 am.) Soon, it will be summer vacation...until August.