a weekend in CU

greetings voracious readers.

 helen's out of town for a week, so obviously i spent today with a large pile of grading that remained rather large, a large bowl of cheesy salsa dip that did not remain large, and the Bad Boys 2 DVD. 

saturday helen and i headed south to CU for the weekend.  she's off for a week to mississippi for Habitat with the Uni kids.  we saw her dad, did not go to biaggis because they went reservation only for the Vday, so we went to the Courier.  i had a burger and fries.  helen had half a chicken :)  and we both got chocolate shakes.  then we went back to her mom's and figured out how to work a VCR again.  she checked out Scuffy the Tugboat from the library to reconnect with her inner 2 year old.  then, since we had it hooked up anyway, i made her watch Field of Dreams.  actually, she wanted to watch Homeward Bound, and I was for Jurassic Park, so it seemed like a good compromise.   then we watched SNL, which was alright.  Alec Baldwin and the Jonas Brothers weren't very entertaining. 

sunday helen left, so i went to buy food for my starving college student sister.  then i stole her teen vampire novels because all my students are reading them all the time, so i figured i'd see what the fuss is about.  i only took three because i didnt want to carry any more on the train.  i finished the first one on the train.  it wasn't too bad.  definitely better than the anita blake series so far.  a little formulaic and predictible, and definitely some ideas taken from anne rice and the underworld movies, but not bad.  and if it gets high school kids to read, i guess i shouldn't complain.  

then i met up with sid and sarah who were watching The Fifth Element, while Sarah decided if she should show it to her students when they do their science fiction unit.  She narrowed it down to that or Mars Attacks, which are probably two of my all time favorites.  I didn't get to watch either in my high school english class.  Then we met back up with my sister for Papa Dels.  mmm cheesy tomatoey pepperoni gluten.  then the train!  i enjoy the train.  i read, and wasn't productive.  and i helped some high school student going to visit her brother in the city avoid the creepy old guy who talks to everyone.  the train was only a few minutes late which was cool.  but then i had to take the blue line at 11 pm which was interesting.  first i gave directions to a drunk dude who could hardly stand but managed to go up and down the escalator a few times, incite some teenage african americans to threaten him with bodily harm, and make several older women feel uncomfortable.  then i met two nice men who offered to sell me some mushrooms.  then i rode in the front car of the el and walked home in the surprisingly quiet city.  

no newspaper.

school is going well still.  Psouth is doing this new grading thing where a 49 is the new 0.  it doesn't affect my first hour class becaues they do most of the work and seem to enjoy it, but my second hour is in open rebellion.  i hardly finish passing out a worksheet before three paper airplanes fly through the air.  i hand out detentions like candy.  it's hilarious.

i'm also currently teaching the ACT prep class.  which is interesting.  i am supposed to have about 15 kids on tues and thurs for an hour and a half, but once they realized that the math portion of class involves ::gasp:: math! they seem to have suddenly remembered pressing engagements elsewhere.   

well i'm sure that i'm supposed to be grading something or planning something, so i better get to it.  more likely i will be found on the couch debating whether to start the pile of 24 tapes or continue reading about angsty teenagers who want to be vampires...

the 2008 survey post
Now Playing: helen on guitar...

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
I proposed to my girlfriend, and got a salaried job

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any.  I'll probably say something lame this year and not do it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Helen's sister in law will give birth on Monday.  I think that's the closest.  And it's definitely this year.  

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Grandma P :(

5. What countries did you visit?
No new countries.  But a new state, Hawaii.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
a savings account

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Helen said yes on 8/28.  I'm such a romantic sap.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
well a 52 minute improvement in the inline marathon is a pretty good achievement.  most of my students work when i tell them to.  i count that.  a purple belt in shotokan

9. What was your biggest failure?
i've been lame about shotokan.  not as strict as i should be with the schuelerinnen.  saving money.  

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
no

11. What was the best thing you bought?
well there was this ring...

12. What was the biggest risk you took?
I’m not much of a risk taker.

13. What is the one decision you made that you wish you could change?
i probably should start being a more reflective person

14. Where did most of your money go?
gas, although thats getting better.  rent.  

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
i enjoyed being a best man so much that i did it twice and am now slated for the top spot next year.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
well it wont remind me of 2008 so much, but that love lockdown is playing constantly.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or sadder - Happier
Older or wiser - yes
Thinner or fatter? - neither
Richer or poorer? – slightly richer!!! may the trend continue…

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
fun things

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
spend money

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
spending xmas day with family, then moms family, then dads family.  all the days around xmas waiting in monee for little kieran to join the world

24. What was your favorite TV program?
i watch top gear with krajniak when i want to be social.  i watch gossip girl with helen on mondays because i dont like thinking.  

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
no

26. What was the best book you read?
well.  it wasn't the BEST book, but i've had my nose in Deutsch Aktuell 1 more often than not this entire year.
i enjoyed cauldron by mcdevitt and firstborn by clarke/baxter to keep me in scifi funness.  i've read a handful of the ian fleming bond novels.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
i was able to deliver a keyboard to helen who misses her piano

28. What did you want and get?
a job and a fiancee

29. What did you want and not get?
a computer

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
probably "wer frueher stirbt ist laenger tod"

30b.What was your LEAST favorite film of this year?
i hate most movies.  yet i keep going back...

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
i turned 27.  helen and i went to da lucianos on the 4th.  

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
saving more money.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
shirts and ties

34. What kept you sane?
books movies and hangin with miss helen

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
what?

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
there was an election.  i enjoyed the sarah palin rap on snl.  i didnt care that much either way other than that.

37. Who did you miss?
grandma p.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
WLFAE and FAWLE people

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
working at fry's will yield you meeting one person of intelligence and character in forty seven.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
i do not know any song lyrics

all that has come to pass since last i posted...

hmmm.  it's been a long long time since I made my way to this slice of the internet.  i'll see if i can catch you up on the goings-on in Matt World. 

I finished student teaching and graduated!   I finished out my time at Mather High School, which was a lot of fun.  I went to their Ethnic Fest and saw all the different cultural groups do some sort of routine, and ate a lot of food.  It was pretty awesome. I also dragged Joe, Alina and Jen to the first full length play that Mather has done.  It was Scenes from West Side STory.  THe students did a really good job, but the parents were rather irritating and talked most of the evening.  Graduation went well.  Grandma H came down and Helen came up and we wandered around UIC and sat through a mediocre speech by someone I already don't remember.  

I got a job for the summer! I worked full time at Fry's Electronics in Downers Grove for 3 months.  It went pretty well.  I liked working up front at the registers.  The people were mostly decent, if only in their early 20s.  Then they transferred me to the Telecom Sales department which made me stay later in the evenings, but I no longer had to pretend I didn't understand how to use a plunger when someone told me to go clean a bathroom.  Now I just had to fetch crap for people from the back and explain how phones work.  I was planning on staying with this job right up until school started, but some dumb girl from my department went and complained to the assistant store manager that I was taking time off for vacation,  so the day before I left I get this lecture about how I haven't built up enough vacation time, so if I miss more than three days of work in a week I have to reapply.  I never want to work in a place with such crappy employee relations as that store again.  

I ushered Glen and Jen's wedding! In July, Jen and Glen got themselves hitched!  Sid, Krajniak, some other dude, and I were the ushers who moved people around.  We failed rather miserably at separating people as they were supposed to be seated, but it all worked out pretty well.  I attempted to post Glen doing the Tunak Tunak dance to YouTube but the conversion pretty much darkened it too much.  You can still go find it if you want to.... 

I went to Hawai'i! Grandma H takes everyone for a trip for HS graduation.  WHhen James and I graduated we went to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone Nat'l Parks.  Micki and Sean were graduating this year, so Gram decided to take them and everybody else to Hawaii for a week.  We went with a tour group that went to O'ahu and Maui, but had lots of free time.  On O'ahu, we went to Pearl Harbor, the Polynesian Cultural Center, took surfing lessons, ate a ton of rice and pineapple related dishes, and stood in front of the Waikiki Beach Live Webcam to wave to people.  On Maui, we went to Haleakala Volcano, drove the Road to Hana, went ziplining, snorkeling off of Molokini, and ate lots of rice and pineapple dishes.  Every day in Hawaii, I ate rice at 2/3 meals, and swam in the Pacific, which were my two goals.  We also rented a Jeep to drive to Hana which was awesome.  Pictures will be posted to my website when I get a new computer...

I got a real job!  I am now officially a German teacher in the Plainfield school district.  I split my time half between Plainfield South HS and Plainfield HS Central Campus.  I teach two sections of German 1 at both schools, which means that I have to deal with Freshmen all day long, BUT it means that I have a full time job with only one prep, which is pretty nice for a first year gig.  It lets me put more effort towards making German 1 work well.  I have been trying to get to German club meetings at both schools in addition to my other meetings that I have all the damn time.  :)  At both schools I have one class that just sits there and does whatever I tell them to do, is mostly interested in learning German but doesn't really care about it all that much, and one class where there are a lot of people who are constantly asking me to translate random words and at the same time are really interested in what we are learning but whenever I give them an inch they are all talking loudly and yelling to friends across the room and getting into whatever they want to do and then I have to take time to bring them back together.  It's interesting.

I got a fiancee! Helen and I are now officially engaged, as opposed to the last several years when we were only jokingly unofficially engaged.  :)  We had a low key engagement that fit our personalities pretty well.  She has made me little hand drawn books throughout our relationship and I made her one this time.  We made dinner and then walked to the Tastee Freeze for twists.  We're looking at next summer, and possibly at the U of I Union Ballroom.  Helen is starting her Masters in Urban Planning at UIC and is suddenly remembering why graduation felt so good last time.  

I skated another Inline Marathon!  This year, Joe and I were accompanied by Alina and Helen, not only to Duluth, but this time in the race itself!  Helen and I practiced by skating the lakefront path in Chicago every weekend which helped a lot.  Joe just barely managed to break 2 hours, Alina skated a 2:10, and Helen and I were at 2:14.  Joe improved his time by 11 minutes and I improved my time by 52 minutes.  I dont know what the heck happened there!  Joe missed all of our finishes because he wasn't expecting any of us so soon.  He was standing at the finish line watching when Alina tapped him on the back and said "hi" and then as they were talking they heard the announcer say "Helen Miller of Urbana IL!" as she and I crossed the line.   It was a really fun weekend, we didn't get rained on, and we ate a lot of delicious food.  I wasn't able to get the day off, so we had to leave around 4ish from Joe and Alina's apartment, but it worked out well because I work right off of Rte 59 in Plainfield, and Joe and Alina live at Rte 59 and I-88 so it was a straight shot out of here to the great white North.  

Today I have the day off, school was cancelled due to flooded roads all around Plainfield, so I should probably get back to work, but I felt like it was time to do some updating of a several months nature.  We'll see if i get back into updating this or if it's another eight months before I find any time to update...

the longest post ever written in one or possibly more sittings (4)

Jan 11.  Friday

Drove Rob M. up north for a job interview in Schaumburg.  Went well, he got the job, in fact it was more of a “fill out this paperwork” kind of job interview.  Then we went back to naperthrill and he bought me Chipotle for my trouble and we hung out at his house.  It was a good way to procrastinate starting the fun that was painting the kitchen.  Amusingly, as I type this, the kitchen has been painted for some time and we’ve moved on to doing the cabinets.  I normally go with mom and dad to Gram and Gramps’ on Friday when they bring food, but I didn’t today due to painting.  Mom said that “dad and matt were painting” and Gramps made a comment about how I was probably doing all the work.  It was rather amusing. 

 Jan 14.  Monday

Got up early and headed to UIC for the mandatory student teaching orientation at Student Center East.  It went pretty well.  I hung out with Matt M. and Carolyn during the boring part.  Then German Sara and I left because SURPRISE!  Our german department people, our field supervisor, and anyone else who may have been useful DID NOT SHOW UP.  So leaving early was cool.  I got to miss a little more rush hour traffic, which is always nice.  Also, our seminar is on Thursday, which was moved from Wednesday, when ALL other disciplines have their seminars.  Which wouldn’t have been so bad if we were notified, because apparently it’s been in the student class schedule as Wednesday from the beginning, even though they knew back in November that it was actually going to be on Thursday, but the German department couldn’t be bothered with letting anyone know what was going on.  Sigh.

 Jan 15.  Tuesday

First day at Mather!  They are reviewing this week for final exams which are on Thursdday and Friday.  So I sat and watched them go over vocabulary.  Which is fine. 

 Jan 16.  Wednesday

Second day at Mather!  More reviewing.  Wheeeeeeeeeee.

 Jan 17.  Thursday

First day of Finals!  First day of Seminar.  It was windy as hell between University Hall and BSB.  How weird.  Then I rushed home to change for Shotokan.  Thursdays are going to be loooooong days.

 Jan 18.   Friday

More finals.  Nothing particularly exciting.

 Jan 19.  Saturday

Got up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday to go to the CPS Student Teacher Initiative Summit.   I found the other UIC people and sat with them.  Then we proceeded to listen to the most boring 3 hour speech on how to ‘reach kids’ that I have ever been a part of.  The pinnacle being of course, the rap video of “Mr. Duey” rapping out how to work with fractions.  Which was mostly him saying “I’m gonna teach you bout fractions” and little actual math.  There was a brief example.  It was 5 / 10.  I could have had a lot more fun with this if I were a meaner person.  BUT, there was one good 45 minute seminar on stuff out of the entire 8 hours, we got free lunch, and a nice bag.  And we got this certificate that will get us in to a few job fairs an hour before they open.  So I suppose it was worth it.  And making fun of the math video with Mike and Ola was alright. 

After that, I headed up north for Joe’s bachelor party.  They were finishing up a game of whirlyball, which I didn’t particularly want to join in on, or pay for, so it all worked out.  I found a free parking spot near John’s apartment, which was supposedly the great feat of the night.  Everyone else paid.  Suckers.  We hung out in the penthouse party room of john’s condo that you can rent out.  It was good to see people I don’t normally see all that often.  We ordered pizza and ate chips and laughed about how it was -20 outside.  Then we went to the first bar, Rocket?  and paid for overpriced drinks.  It was fine.  Then we went to the Hangge Uppe or something weird like that.  It was ridiculously loud and we were packed in like sardines.  I navigated to the back corner and they mostly followed me.  I counted 37 people between me and the door, and over 50 between me and the other door, in a room that said maximum occupancy 14.  john tried to get random girls to dance with joe, and then he had to stand against the wall.  it was amusing.  After a small vomit mishap in my car, Glen and I got him back home, where we forgot to put a hockey stick in his coat, or on his bed or on the couch.  All in all an entertaining evening.

 Jan 20.  Sunday

I spent Sunday painting.  Woot!

 Jan 21.  Martin Luther King Jr Day

I painted some more and visited Gram and Gramps. 

 Jan 22.  Tuesday

My first day doing actual teaching things!  I took over the German I and German II classes.  It went rather well I guess for a first day.  The teacher said that the German IIs liked my personality, but I need to be more strict with them in terms of classroom management.  There was also some severe water damage (not in my classroom) from the heavy snowfall.  Several water mains burst, causing various classrooms to flood.  So they had classes in the auditorium and in random rooms all around the building.  Craziness.  For the most part, Tom had good things to say, but obviously he needs to do some critiquing, otherwise I’m not getting much out of it.  So that was good.  Mostly just be stricter, always have them doing something, and always have it be for a grade, use more German with the 2’s, and be more creative, don’t just rely on the book. 

 Jan 23.  Wednesday

I did some stuff with powerpoint today which the teacher liked.  I think it works well to do powerpoint to integrate culturey stuff and have them have to answer questions using their new vocabulary and grammar skills while I’m talking about culture.  I do have to make sure to vary the activities and keep it so the kids are talking to each other at times. 

 Jan 24. Thursday

Third day of doing things.  Nothing exciting to report.  Also, I was pretty bad about writing down all the funny quotes I wanted to keep track of from the students. 

 Jan 25.  Friday

Professional Development Day!  No students.  But I still have to drive my ass to the City.  Then I went home and helped Micki work on her laptop. 

 Jan 26. Saturday

Rory bought the new Jackie Chan movie: Robin B. Hood off of Best Buy.com and we watched that.  It was pretty hilarious.  He plays a small time thief who is paid to kidnap a baby child by the evil grandfather.  There were entirely too many flying diaper scenes though, ending with people having greenish poo all over their faces.  After that, we went to the C30 and saw the new Rambo.  That was pretty damn good for a sixty something year old man.  Lots of action.  Lots of shooting.  And the stupid pacifists learn that sometimes you have to kill bad guys who are trying to kill you.  Well played mr. Stallone.

 Jan 27.  Sunday.

Rob Meissner and I went to see the new Untraceable movie with the dude killing people on the internet.  I thought it was a good plot but it came across completely stupid.  Just too slow and boring.  Then I went to mom’s classroom and copied/scanned some books that I’ve been using with the German kids.  I need to get on that some more.  I’m getting behind.

 Jan 28.  Monday

My first Monday on the job.  Driving to the city, past OHare airport on a Monday morning is irritating as hell.  Some kids in World Studies (freshman history) thought that Columbus was the first president of the US.  We watched a video on the Maya which was pretty cool.  CPS has this deal with National Geographic that they can stream any of their videos off of the internet to watch in the classroom which is pretty sweet.  So Tom just hooks up his laptop to the tv and bingo.  Then I went home and helped Micki more with her laptop.  I loaded AIM, set up the Windows Mail, I think all that’s left is loading her iTunes and stuff.

 Jan 29.  Tuesday

The kids in World Studies are learning about the Inca which I find pretty amusing.  I however spent fifth period wandering the halls telling random security guards that one of the boys from the class was roaming.  They were like ‘we know’  how sad is it that a 16 year old student is roaming the halls and security are searching for him???

 Jan 30.  Wednesday.

I did another powerpoint, this time on trains!  It went over well.  Then I went home and went to sleeeeeep!

 Jan 31.

 it snowed a lot.  So we cancelled our seminar.  I made it home ok though.

 Feb 1. Friday

It continued to snow all night.  I woke up early because of the snow.  Mom got a phone call around 5.  she and Micki don’t have school.  I look online. CPS is still a-go.  I get a call around 5:15.  ooooh yeah I’m getting a snow day!!! Actually…. NO.  the opposite.  Tom is sick and can’t make it in, so can I take over his classes?  Shit.  So I drove 2.5 hours in the snow.  It worked out alright.  There were so few cars on the road because of the crappy conditions that it basically only slowed me down to my normal time on the Reagan and on the Tri State.  The Kennedy was a zoo though.  So I got to mather around 8ish.  That wasn’t too bad.  Student attendance was around 50% and there were about 30 teachers who called in too.  So it was an easy day.  I had a sub who was an ESL teacher who wants to be a Russian teacher. 

 I made it out ok, and headed down to Tinley Park.  Picked up Helen and hit the road for South Bend.  We got there and went straight to the church.  Which may or may not have involved me driving on sidewalks.  Ooops.  We were the first ones to the church.  Glen arrived not too much later, and then everyone was there for the rehearsal.  Well, not everyone.  Mike wasn’t there yet, and a good amount of the bridesmaids hadn’t yet arrived either.  So we went through the run through.  LEFT OVER RIGHT!  For some reason, they really wanted our hands to be crossed left over right.  Joe made the call on that one.  so we all decided to draw obscene pictures on our right hands to ensure correct usage.  Then Helen and I got wendy’s and fell asleep watching The Incredibles while everyone else went out to the bars.  J

 Feb 2.  Saturday

Krajniak, Mike and I met up with Mr. Meier at 10 to go get our tuxes.  It went well.  They had to change Krajniak’s pants like three times, but I just hitched mine up before she noticed and I was fine.  Mr. meier saw me and laughed a lot.  Then I had to have them tell me what the button thingies were.  We got back to the hotel and met up with Joe Glen, Sid and John to get lunch at Jimmy Johns.  The poor kid behind the counter must have been new because I paid with a $10, he accidentally hit $20, and could not figure out how to make me change.  Whoops.  Then I had to hurry up and get ready to meet up with the groomsmen for the informal pictures in the hotel lobby.  I got a pretty sweet baseball bat from Joe as the groomsman gift.  Helen met up with Sid and Sarah to get to the ceremony, and we got to ride in the limo.  Alina had wanted the stretched Cadillac, but unfortunately they were out of them, so Joe got a stretched H2 Hummer.  I don’t think I could get one of those.  It’s nice, but it’s not the full sized Hummer. 

 The ceremony was really nice.  We all remembered to keep the left over right, and no one screwed up.  J  then we stood around in the snow waiting for the photographer to get in the formal pictures at the church and around the church and around the notre dame campus.  Then we drove around town with a quick stop at the liquor store for more champagne.  We stopped to take pictures of ducks too which was fun.  The limo driver was pretty good and had fun giving us a good place to pause at.  I think I’ll do what dad did and take the wedding party out for ice cream in between.  Because you know, ice cream is awesome.

 Then we got to the country club for the reception.  We hung out in the basement and ate a lot of hors d’overes.  The reception was really nice.  We all got wine cork thingies for the reception present.  The speeches were all really good too!  Glen was hilarious, mentioning Hoodlum, WOBGAH, and other various inside jokes that I liked being a part of, Alina’s dad and Joe’s mom were both funny too.  Isla set her hair on fire.  I talked to Rich.  I saw Linz for the first time in a long time.  Jeff accused me of being Helen’s personal photographer.  We ate lots of steak and chicken.  Then we took the bus back to the hotel at some point late at night.  And again, some people went out and I went to sleep.  Mmmm sleep. 

 Feb 3. Sunday

Sunday we woke up, packed up the car, checked out, and met up with everyone for lunch at BW3s, much to Helen’s chagrin.  As usual, everyone else got their food and I was forgotten.  LAME.  It’s what I get for trying to order something cheap and quick.  I think I still left a small tip.  Then we headed out and went back to Tinley Park to play with Kathryn in the snow.  J  we threw snowballs at her against the garage, and then ate milkshakes.  We went inside and I fell asleep on the floor.  Someone said something about a nap and Kathryn pointed at me.  *I* thought it was amusing.  Then I drove home from Tinley Park and using the new I-355 extension, and no traffic because of the superbowl I made it home in no time at all. 

 Feb 4. Monday

For no reason whatsoever, the traffic was ridiculous.  It took me two freakin’ hours to get to Mather.  Most of which was spent on the three mile length of the Kennedy that I need to use.  I spent most of the day listening to the kids talk about who won or lost the most money on the superbowl.  One girl lost 60 and another kid won 300.  or maybe it was the other way around. 

 Feb 5.  Tuesday

My half-birthday!  Tom brought in a King Cake from Strack and Van Till for Maryanne for Mardi Gras and it was delicious.  I think it’s a really cool idea.  You put a small figurine in the cake, and whoever gets the piece with the figure has to host the next party.  I think I’ll use this at some point in the future.  To celebrate Karneval (Fasching) we made jester hats (jeckische Narrenkappe) for the German IIs and we made Maskenball masks for the German Is.  It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed it a lot.  Then I went home and voted.  The lady in front of me was Mrs. Filer, who used to be our neighbor, and the lady in front of her absolutely flipped out and went nuts when she was told she couldn’t vote as an independent and still vote for people, only propositions.  She just started screaming and throwing things and said “fine, well then I just wont vote!”  it was really weird.  But apparently auntie Moe won her primary, so that’s good.  I think that means we get to see her giant face on a billboard on the Eisenhower or something.  So thatll be cool.

 Feb 6. Aschermittwoch

It was supposed to snow a lot, but luckily it didn’t, so I didn’t have bad traffic again.  The one amusing thing that happened today was apparently an assistant principal at a school on the south side of CPS sent out a CPS wide email saying “I’m a black dude who likes skinny white chicks, so if you know of any looking for a job, send them my way”  whoops. He’ll be gone soon.   I started working with two of f the really bad kids in the fifth period history class, and he was making fun of my one buddy in the class who has been doing really well.  And my buddy says to him “Hard work feels good.  You should try it sometime son!”  Then I went over to Krajniak’s for a barbecue for his birthday.  We accidentally ate a lot of meat.  Luckily I’m not a catholic. 

 Feb 7.  Thursday.

So… I leave early because there’s supposed to be a lot of ice on the roads.  And there’s a damn semi ON FIRE on the freakin’ tri state.  I can’t win.  So I was 15 minutes late again.   My professor from UIC observed me teach today and went on a rampage about how traditional I am and how I’m not communicative at all which was really irritating.  She’s seen me ONE DAY.  Anyway.  It was irritating.  And THEN I went home and was all prepared to finally go to Shotokan after a two week hiatus.  But of course, there was no class tonight for whatever reason.  LAME

 Feb 8. Friday

Skool was skool.  I spent some time trying to get everything organized during the day.  I’m getting closer.  I think. 

 Feb 9.  Saturday

Dad and I went up to grandma’s to fix her drain pipe.  Aj was there with the girls.  But there was too much snow to get to the drain.  So instead we took Kate and Grace out to play in the snow.  Which was awesome.  AND Gracie spoke to me!!!!! I asked her if she liked her blanket and she said “yeah” and then I ran alongside her down the hill while AJ pushed Kate.  And Grace liked it but Kate didn’t!  Kate went down once with dad, but only Grace wanted to keep going.  Then I pretended to fall down a lot in the snow and Kate laughed a lot.  It was great.  Then after lunch Grace took a nap and Kate made sock puppets while I went to get grandma’s car gas.  When I got back, Kate and I did a puppet show about me teaching her how to say the alphabet.  It was pretty cool.  Then we hurried home because dad gets frustrated when he thinks about everything on his to do list.  I wish I could help more around the house.  But I do all this crap for mather and then I want to lie around and do nothing during the hour here or there that I get.  It’s irritating.

 Feb 10. Sunday

Uhh.  We went out to breakfast because the kitchen has kind of exploded with everything going on.  I got a melon bowl and some corned beef hash and mom gave me her pancakes.  Sometimes I do like breakfast.  J  then we went barn hunting so Micki could take pictures for her photo class.  luckily it was TWO degrees outside.  Then after church I don’t remember what we did.  I think dad went shopping, Micki went to work and mom went to work at her classroom and I did some stuff for school. 

 Feb 11. Monday

We had a teacher institute day, so I had to go to Mather even though there were no students.  I sat through some boring meetings and thought about things I want to do this week.  I’m giving the ones a test, and a quiz to the 2s on Thursday.  So it should be good.  Then I finally went to Shotokan again.  Mr Brien gave us an ok workout. 

 Feb 12. Tuesday

Old Honest Abe’s Birthday!  No school for CPS!!!  I did laundry.  And some work.  and I sanded the kitchen spots.  And I folded a lot of clothes.  And I cleaned my room a little.  It still looks like crap.  And I tootored.  And I fetched McDonalds for dinner. 

 Well that’s the summation of the last month.  I wanted to go through and add some of my notes from the individual days with things the kids have done in class and stuff.  But I’m tired and I want to go to bed and if you really want to let me know and you can read my student teaching notebook. 

What are YOU up to these days?

of old friends and old people

saturday night i hung out with Rob from GAPP.  He invited me over to his 'get rid of the leftover booze from new years' party.  it was good although i didn't know anyone.  also, i think rob took a few years off before going to college, as everyone tehre was either someone he worked with or a senior at roosevelt or lewis or wherver he went and his girlfriend is going.  it was a good time.  it was awkward at first, especially as about three minutes after i arrived everyone except for one kid disappeared.  it turns out they were all taking a smoke break on the back porch?  then rob and i got two others and we played euchre.  the other dude and i (whose name i never learned) beat rob and andy? the first game 11 to 6, and then lost the second game 11 to 10.  then i joined some people who were playing asshole, which at first i thought was bs, then realized it wasnt, but then realized it was the same as presidents.  i hadn't played presidents or euchre since freshman year of college, but i like both games, so it was fun.  as the night went on most people seemed to get drunker, but rob did a good job of keeping the drivers from having too much.  my former euchre partner started lecturing me about the benefits of veganism.  he seemed to think himself quite the philosophizer, which just prompted me to ask stupid questions to see what he'd say.  he then informed me that i was in fact the smartest person he'd ever talked to, and decided that i was worth the next level of intellectual discussion and started talking about how when one is vegan, one truly sees the hopelessness of religion and the clear case against a creator God.  this lead to him going on and on about how words like genocide can become meaningless and he started crying as he "thought about uganda"  he paused frequently to make sure i was watching before forcing more tears out.  at this point i conceded defeat in weirdness and gracefully made my exit.  but it was good to see rob, so i dont consider the evening a waste. 

sunday we did stuff for dad's bday.  we made nachos and watched movies and then he and i went through to delete some ireland pictures so we can print some and make an album. 

yesterday i went to Grandma's to take down her xmas stuff for her.  i arrived and of course she was leaving for lunch and so i went along.  she was taking out her pakistani friends.  i liked them a lot.  i've met priscilla before at church, and this was the first time i met her husband edmund.  he has parkinsons like uncle dave which messes with your body phisically but not mentally.  he had a pretty good sense of humor but he was still apologetic about 'being a nuisance' whenever we had to help him stand up or get out of the car or whatever.  they just came over recently from pakistan.  they'd sent their kids over to go to college in the US because they weren't allowed to do anything in pakistan because they're christian.  the kids of course did not want to go home, so the parents retired over here.  apparently they had a christmas tree that they would dig up every year, put it in the house for a while, then replant it.  it just got bigger and bigger every year.  crazy.  we went out to wellingtons and i had the prime rib sandwich because i wasnt allowed to get a hamburger.  :)  it was gooooooooooood.  tehn we went back adn did a alittle work.  i got all the trees back down, as well as most of the rest of the stuff.  a few little things are still up but gram can handle them whenever.  then we went out to chinese for dinner.  which was really good.  my fortune cookie said "the pleasure of what we enjoy is lost by wanting more" which i liked.  although now that i'm typing it i remember the "in bed" game of china buffet monday...

tomorrow i might have to go back to grandma's and help uncle kevin fix the downspout of her gutter which broke at the bend and then fell off completely.  whoooeee. 

sliding in to the new year and other shenanigans

well last saturday Rory and I went to see I am Legend.  It was playing in the IMAX but Katlin could not get us in, so we had to pay.  We discovred that if you buy tickets from the machine you can get the senior rate.  As I am an old man, we thought that it was worth saving the $2.  The movie was pretty good.  I liked how they made WIll Smith a little bit of a psycho.  I thought they could have cut down the amount of time where he was the only person in the movie though.  Also, the first five minutes was about a bank robbery.  There was a Joker involved.  And then Batman showed up.  For a while we thought we were in the wrong movie.  But no, the new Batman trailer is not a series of clips like normal trailers are.  It's a five minute scene from the movie.  It was kind of weird.  Although, thinking back, I saw Batman Begins in IMAX though, so it makes sense that the new one might come out in it too. 

Sunday mom and I caused a Commotion by bringing food to grandma's on Auntie Moe's day.  I don't know why mom doesn't call auntie Moe, and I don't know why Auntie Moe went nuts about it instead of just putting food in the fridge and saying eat it tomorrow.  So I just hung back and got very interested in the Sun Times.  Then we went over to Uncle Jimmy's because they'd put Shane to sleep that day and  everyone there was kind of a mess.  Understandably.  They'd planned theirfamily vacations around that dog so he'd never be left alone.  I think Uncle Jimmy spent more nights sleeping on the floor with the dog than he did in his bed.  We sat over there and watched their old home movies.  One of them was xmas at Gram and Gramps in 1986.  I got some GI Joe's and as I'm opening it, you can hear my dad yell "More Cobras???  We're going to need to build a bigger house!"  Eric and Dan have been repeating that comment all week.  It was funny to see theirmovies though.  It just kept going back and forth from Easter and Christmas for like six years.  and in every year Mike is wearing the same robe and heavy gold chain, Dan is wearing a wife beater, and Eric has no pants on.  it was rather amusing.

Monday I headed down to Urbana for New Years.  I helped Helen clean and get ready for peole coming over.  Ruth got there a little later, and SHawn and Ben a little after that.  Then the three of them went for some OJ and champagne and Helen and I made thai food.   Emilia and Aurora came over and we played some games and hung out.  I liked the apples to apples game.  and we played catch phrase!  it was a  really fun time.  around ten someone else came over and brought some friends.  

tuesday we woke up at 11 when Shawn and Ben came back over to get their car.  We all went otu to breakfast at the Original Pancake House
Helen: what are you going to get?
Matt: I dunno, probably just some hash browns, maybe chocolate milk
Helen: that's alll?????
Matt: I've never been much of a breakfast person
Helen: It's 11:30!!
Matt: but i just got up!

after breakfast, we went back to Helen's.  Helen Ruth and I played solitaire and  watched the commentary from Love Actually.  then we met back up with Shawn at Biaggis.  Let me tell you, during the Rose Bowl, when the Illini are playing, there is NO better time to go to Biaggis.  No wait.  there were like eight people total in the restaurant.  I had a pizza and a salad.  Helen had GF fettucine alfredo.  It was all good.   

Wednesday Helen did not have to work because it was 2 degrees outside.  We were lazy and read for a while, then played Scrabble.  Helen beat me as usual.  I had a long string of vowels while helen invented new words like fajasty and mjoggin.  we went to the store, at which point Helen realized she had a typing interview for the extra help thing.  I didn't find anything i wanted at Target, and helen bought the last of the Ramona books with her gift card.   :)   after her interview we went for a walk around campus.  i took pictures of the Alma Mater dressed up for the Rose Bowl.  then we made a pizza!  our pineapple and pepper pizza kicks ass.

Thursday she had to work so i came back north.  so last thursday we went out with Grandma H, who went to the Rose Bowl with Uncle Mike.  Now I made a comment without thinking and offered to pick her up from the airport, not knowing when she was coming in.   well it turns out she was coming in on wednesday at night, when i was planning on being in urbana still.  so dad offered to pick her up instead.  her flight got in at midnight and they waited two hours for the people to unload the luggage.  apparently there were seven plane loads of people waiting.  i'm not sure why.  so dad didn't get to palatine until after 3am.  so since he did me a favor and it turned out to be a pain, i bought him his birthday gift of Rush Hour 3 early and we chilled and watched it, while Micki was out with friends and mom was out with school people.  

Last night we went over to Gram and Gramps again.  Dad brought everyone  Paneras and mom made peas and macaroni for gramps.  i went out to buy this book Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish that Gramps had heard about and wanted to get for Uncle Jimmy.  Dad and I did the cross word with Gramps "help" and he kept us laughing with his stories of trying to go grocery shopping.  dad askeid him if he wanted us to bring steak one night and his response was "i haven't had steak in 20 years.  ever since the damn colon operation.  i've had chicken for twenty years.  it's a wonder i havent laid an egg yet."  then we stopped over at Jim's.  As we're walking in the door...
Auntie Karen: does it still smell like burnt popcorn?
Mom: no
Auntie Karen: oh, well it smelled terrible when i got home
Eric: no, it wasn't that bad
AUntie Karen: the fire alarm was going off!
Eric: we have a fire alarm that works???

 today i'm working on burning my dvd data backups for 2007.  wheeeee.  then apparently later i'm stopping over at HS German Rob's, whom I've seen once in the last eight years.  so that should be entertaining.

the 2007 survey post

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Uhh, I got my motorcycle license

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t think I made any.  I probably won’t this year either.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
well the Rafting Miracle baby was born, but I’m not that close to Justin.  Aaron and Amy are expecting, but I don’t know the due date.  That should answer how close they are.  Helen’s boss had a kid. 

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Grandma, Granma and Gramps are all coming close.  L

5. What countries did you visit?
Ireland!

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
a teaching position.

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Rock climbing with Helen.  It was fun to try something new and discover that we both enjoyed it.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I guess maybe skating the inline marathon

9. What was your biggest failure?
the wind at said inline marathon

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
lots of shotokan blisters.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
well I bought a new car, even though I didn’t want to… Dribble died.   Also, I bought a new camera.  Again, not intentionally, but my other one kinda went south.  

12. What was the biggest risk you took?
I’m not much of a risk taker.

13. What is the one decision you made that you wish you could change?
I don’t dwell on shit.

14. Where did most of your money go?
gas (again), bills, lame things.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going to the dunes with Helen!

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
well, Helen and I listened to the Cupid Shuffle and Soulja Boy a lot

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or sadder - Happier
Older or wiser - yes
Thinner or fatter? - neither
Richer or poorer? – luckily, having started with $0, I can’t get poorer!! Well…

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
earn money

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
spend money

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
spending the weekend leading up to xmas with Helen and her extended fam, then xmas eve with mom dad and Micki, and xmas day with the Harrings and the Pulias.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
uhh, I watched a lot of Top Gear socially with Krajniak and Rich.  I don’t much like this new crap that’s on these days.  I also watched a bit of Jeopardy! With Gram and Gramps.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
not really

26. What was the best book you read?
(new) Harry Potter 7 
(old) I reread the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies by Robin Hobb.  Those are still my favorites.  I also got into the Dresden files.  Nothing spectacular, but they’re pretty decent if you’re not looking for Shakespeare.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Daft Punk came out with a third CD.  It wasn’t as good as the last two.

28. What did you want and get?
a green belt

29. What did you want and not get?
a purple belt

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
probably Die Hard 4.

30b.What was your LEAST favorite film of this year?
oh God there were too many lousy movies to count this year.  I think No Country for Old Men is probably the worst I saw though.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 26.  I was in Champaign and Helen and I went to Tom’s wedding.  Then we went to Dos Reales with her mom and Barry because Helen’s mom and I share a birthday.  I did a barbecue the following weekend I think.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
a smaller ratio of cancerous tumors per elderly relative in the family.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
I got off the fashion train in 1999.

34. What kept you sane?
I read books voraciously to escape reality.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I can’t stand celebrities. 

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
I am not a fan of the politics

37. Who did you miss?
Helen

38. Who was the best new person you met?
I don’t think I met anyone new.  I guess there were probably some new UIC people. 

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
I don’t usually learn my lessons.  I figure out what I should have done, but then I inevitably make the same mistake again.  It’s like I don’t care or something.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I don’t like giving that kind of power to a song.  A movie maybe, or a book definitely, but not a song.  I’m not sure why this is.

Giddyup Jingle Horse

it's been a long week.  Thursday I headed south to Urbana.  I took the new I-355 extension to I-80 to I-57.  It wasn't any faster than any of the previous routes.  IL-47 remains king.  When I got there, I helped Helen make cookies for her coworkers.  We made a good 150+ of GF sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies, and chocolate cookies.  daaaaamn good.  i think the sugar cookies are my favorites. 

Friday while Helen worked, I went and had lunch with Joel.  We swapped stories from the last few months, and i got to hear about his time in India.  sounds like he had a good time, but is glad to be back.  after lunch, helen was done with work, so we went to do some shopping.  i finished my xmas shopping and we did a few errands.  then we went to her mom's house to eat some chili and french fries with her mom and Barry.  then they went out and we watched Love Actually, Helen's first DVD.  after the movie we went to work on Kathryn's bench.  Helen got to use her new router for teh first time!  It was pretty sweet.  then we filled in the nail holes and stained it.  

Saturday we painted and sealed the bench.  It looked pretty awesome.  Then we went to Uni for Helen's 5 year reunion.  I enjoyed the food while Helen talked with her old school buds.  We took a tour of all the things that had changed at Uni, none of which I could tell was new or anything, but it was cool to see the school.  I saw Helen's handprint on the wall on the first floor.  then we went to Helen's dad's and carried Linda's stocking stuffers for everyone down south to Mt Vernon.  the drive went pretty smoothly.  hardly much traffic, and some decent xmas music.  we arrived in Mt Vernon and got to see Kathryn before she went to bed.  We spent most of the evening trying to chase Bear off of Helen's bed.  Then we watched The Incredibles, laughed about how Kathryn appears drunk when she's tired.  

Sunday we woke up, played more with Kathryn, and opened our stocking stuffers from LInda.  THey had lots of useful things in them, breath mints, office supplies, a lighter, and a white castle hat!  We all put on our hats for a while.  Wendell put his on sideways tto become "Gangsta Wendell" and then Kathryn couldn't take it anymore so we let her open Helen's present.  She loved it!  She was sitting on it immediately as it was perfect for her size.  We had an early dinner of Helen's grandma's pasta casserole dish, and then we went to Wendell's family's gift exchange.  It was pretty cool.  Everyone buys one gift and then everyone picks one at a time.  You can choose to open your gift, or steal someone else's, which was amusing to watch.  Scott was nice and stole Wendell's dvds.  Helen got a birdhouse, liked it, had it stolen from her, and got another one in exchange.  We all laughed a lot.  The food was good too.  Also, it seems like Wendell has great-grandkids who are college aged.  I didn't get the full story there, but between all the people i talked to, that's how i figure it.  AFter the dinner, we headed back north.  I tried to take pictures of Helen asleep in the car, but they didn't come out better than making Helen look like a 300 pound man.  

Monday Helen had to work again, so I drove north.  Luckily mom and dad were home, because they'd had the locks changed on Friday after teh doorknob broke.  whoops.  We spent most of the morning and afternoon wrapping presents and getting ready for xmas.  I spent most of the day trying o get my DVD for grandma' to work.  For some reason Day 1,2,3,4,6,7 all work fine and Day 5 didnt.  How irritating.  We cooked a lot of food and then missed teh 5:00 service so we had to go to the 7:00.  It had some good points, but some weird points too.  Like I don't quite know why there was 2 girls who did an interpretive dance in front of the cross.  And I'm always put off by guitar solos during the church worship songs time.  You're not there to be a rockstar.  After church we drove around like usual to look at  lights.  As we left the parking lot, we noticed that the church had a live nativity scene, complete with a donkey and some sheep.  I didn't see a camel.  Then we came home to open presents.  Micki gave me a spongebob blanket and Biaggi's coupons for me and Helen.  Mom and dad gave me a nice outfit.  At some point during the evening my camera stopped working.  It just stopped showing anything in the lens.  LAME.

Tuesday morning I made pancakes and Helen arrived around 9:30.  We opened our stockings and ate some chocolate.  Then it was time to head to the Pulias for the first half of xmas.  Helen was pleased to discover that Elf was playing on  USA.  She's been wanting to watch it all season!  Gram passed out the holiday $ and we ate ate ate.  Dino and Gigi were there all dressed up for the holidays.  People kept changing the channel and we had to move from room to room while we socialized.  Gram was looking ok at some points and sometimes bad.  Gramps seemed to be doing ok.  I talked to Meagan's boyfriend Joe for a while. 

At 330ish we left for teh next round of family fun time.  We got to Grandma's house before AJ left, so that was good.  We got to play with Kate and scare Grace, as usual.  Kate had me first spin her in the chair, and then spin Mary Joseph and Jesus figures.  They seemed to have a good time.  Gram changed some things up this year and did a new version of Luke 2 involving a lot of 'lefts' and 'rights' and we passed little gifts around.  It was a lot of fun.  Then we did the 12 Days.  Helen and I were Ten Lords A Leaping.   I showed Gram her DVD.  Everyone liked ti a lot which was good.  I didnt have as many pictures of Sean and Megthough , because their cameras didnt get included in the picture day swap. 

Wednesday Helen and I played Scrabble.  She whupped my butt once again.  She's better at seeing words than I am.  I do ok.  I got "Zone" on a  triple word score with the Z on a double letter.  Dad got home early, right as Helen left, and he and i went to do some returning.  He swapped a shirt and tie, and returned a game.  I got a James Bond novel and a sci fi book.  

Yesterday we went to Woodfild for lunch with Gram.  Uncle Mike came too while James and Tory worked, and Aunt Lois and Emily went for peticures and shopping.  We ate at the Cheesecake factory, which ended up being pretty lame.  There was an hour wait, and the food ended up being either fried in  peanut oil or cross contaminated.  (Uncle Mike ate it anyway).  I had a pretty good spicy chicken sandwich though.  Then we more than earned our free meal by sitting around for over TWO HOURS while Uncle Mike tried on six pairs of pants, several shirts, jackets and sweaters.  Sigh.  Then we had to hurry home so i could go to karate.  It was a good workout, we did some core body training and then some self defense exercises.  Katlin was home for the hoildays so she came with.  

Today dad and I went to do some errands.  We stopped to look at the camera I was thinking about at Office Max.  it turned out to be on sale for $20 cheaper than anywhere else, and also, it came with a free 2GB card.  So I went ahead and spent dad's money.  I felt bad.  I think he was a little jealous of my camera.  He never says anything, but you can sometimes tell.  And he never would say no to us.  It's awkward.  

He and mom went to take food to Gram and Gramps today, and I took Micki to buy a camera for her.  She ended up going with the slightly cheaper, smaller camera.  We went to 4 different stores to find it, but finally found one.  She likes it a  lot.  

Sorry for the boring report nature of the post.  I've been watching Dr. No, and possibly not paying as much attention to the computer as I should have.  Now it's time for bed.

last semester before student teaching is done done done

well i think i'm finally done with grad school assignments!  thursday night after i came home from karate, I peeled my blisters off and sat down to finish my paper for 448 and my portfolio for 432.  the paper was due by 9:30 and I emailed it in around 8.  the portfolio was apparently due wednesday and for some reason i had friday in my head, so i sent that off as soon as i dotted the final i and crossed the final t.  in between i went to mom's school to help mom's friend's kid prepare for his German I final.  H e wasn't too into it, but i can't say i would have been in HS either.  there was one word that i didn't know, so i asked Jonas, and he didn't know either.  so we just made that one up.  he was doing alright on the rest of them.  in between all that and tutoring i dropped off some food at Grndma and Gramps, and was there fro all of ten minutes.   

friday night after tutoring, Helen came up.  we made some chicken something in between sweet and sour and stir fry.  i need to separate those recipes and make them how they're supposed to be made.  i bought the good chicken, and you can really taste the difference between a boneless skinless breast and the stuff that comes in a box with grill lines painted on.  we ate dinner, helen made a gf pumpkin pie,  adn then fell asleep watching It Could Happen to You with Nick Cage and a really really really irritating mexican girl.  I thought the ending was kind of lame.  the court room scene was too stupid.  But overall it was a nice movie.  I slept through a lot of the middle.

Saturday  we went up to Crystal Lake for her mom's family's christmas party.  i ate a lot of fudge.  we watched Kathryn open christmas presents and helped her play with them.  then we ate a lot of turkey and ham and mashed potatoes and green beans and corn.  after eating we played a movie trivia game.  i did alright., although i didn't speak up, and consequently let the other team get about half a dozen answers that i had said first but not loud enough.  it didn't matter in the end because we all chose to bet it all on the final answer and both teams got it wrong.  so we tied at zero.  after that game we went to play charades.  i sat there without any clue how to pantomime "The Bishop's Wife" and no one got that one.  but my second time I had "Twas the Night Before CHristmas" and Helen's mom guessed it before I even did anything.  that was weird but good.  it had snowed all day so then we all had to scrape cars adn slowly drive back south.  I guess Helen's mom and Barry tried to make it all the way to Urbana but got snowed in in Kankakee.  Helen and I returned to Lisle and the fun of a backed up sewer.  So she slept on the couch while dad and i dealt with It.

Sunday was Cookie Day at uncle AJs.  Helen and I went to Menards first to do some christmas shoppoing.  she got something for the gift exchange, a new hammer hook, a present for micki, and the rest of the stuff she needs to finish Kathryn's xmas present.  Then we took the new I-355 for the first time past 55 and it seriously cut the drive to AJs from 45 minutes to 20.  although I had to pay an extra two tolls.  I think it cut Scott and Cassandra's drive from Tinley Park to Crystal Lake down significantly too.  We got to AJs with a quick stop on the way to get Grandma her Coke fix.  I had an italian beef sandwich with some good giardineira again.  Then it was time to Make Cookies.  Micki and Helen and I took it easy this year and made the chocolate drop pretzels.  The highlight was when I asked my little cousin Kate to help with the sprinkles.  Micki took a picture of me and Helen pouring chocolate and putting sprinkles on, and only then  did we notice that Kate was poouring sprinkles in her mouth.  Her green tongue was hilarious.  Gracie was glued to her mom's side for most of the day.  She did sit on micki's lap and color for a while.  Then we went down to the basement to play Catch Phrase.  I like that game.  We did pretty well, but AUnt Mary Kate, Uncle Dan, Dad, Tory, and AJ beat Helen, Grandma, Uncle Kevin, AUnt Jan, Aunt Meghan and I.  Then Helen headed back down to Urbana and we came back north.

Monday I had my meeting at Mather H'S.   I now have a staff badge.  I met with my CT.  German classes are Periods 1, 7 and 8.  So that should be interesting.  We'll see how good my German is first thing in th e morning.  Luckily? that's the harder class, so it will be the last one i take over.  The dude seems happy to have a student teacher, so he can take time to fill out applications for a principalship.  Also, I'mhis 9th student teacher in 12 years.  And since you can't have one the first couple years, I'm pretty sure that means he has one aa year..  We'll see what that means.  He says he follows the book pretty straightforwardly, so I'm going to have to get to know Deutsch Aktuell.  I've only been familiar with Komm Mit up til now.  

I met up with David at the CHristkindlmarkt for an hour or so.  It was good.  We spoke German the entire time, which was really good.   Also it looks like Micki got into UIUC!!  SHe hasn't gotten a letter yet, but her friends were telling her it's online so she found her name and it says "accept" next to it.  Which is kind of weird but hey, whatever works.

The rest of this week I have to do the last of my Christmas shopping, get an oil change, and then I'm heading down to Urbana and Mount Vernon for the weekend.  

Now it's over the river and through the woods... 

vocabulary snobbishness and other weird things

i don't know why some words irritate me.  I don't use 'google' as a verb.  I don't use 'blog' as a noun or a verb.  The latest one is 'high def'.  We've been using 'HD' for a few years now, why the sudden need for change?  More importantly, why do I care?

Micki was home sick yesterday and today.  Yesterday afternoon I watched the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie with her.   It wasn't bad.  Long though.  Almost 3 hours.  So there were definitely someslow boring parts in there.  I felt like 2 and 3 pulled a Matrix.  They thought that the first movie had a grander scope than it actually did, so movies 2 and 3 tried to live up to some ideal that they really didn't need to.  Also, I think getting to see your family for one day every ten years is a pretty lousy situation. 

As you can tell, I'm procrastinating doing homework.  GER 448 paper and ED 432 portfolio to go.  The portfolio is half done.  The paper...

I'll probably start cleaning soon.  Or something.  I guess I shouldget back to work. LAME. 

two more assignments for the semester!

well it looks like it's about time for my weekly tuesday update...

the weekend was over rather quickly.  Friday, I went to Rory's and saw what he and Patrick have been working on in the loft.  It looks pretty good. We went to the video store, but didn't find anything, so we decided to go see what we had lying around.  Mickey and his friends wanted to watch Mafia the spoof of Godfather, Goodfellas, and Casino.  It has Lloyd Bridges and Jay Mohr.  There are some funny scenes, but nothing spectacular.  After that we watched Munich, which was about the Israeli assasination squad that went after the Palestinians responsible for killing the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich games.  It was interesting to see.  The movie had to make some stuff up to make it all flow together, but it was interesting to see the differences.  It was also interesting to think about how much time and effort the Israelis put towards taking out 11 individuals while the Palestinians were portrayed as blowing up busloads of people in the same time.  

Saturday wewent out for Micki's birthday.  We went downtown to the Christmas Markt.  I bought an olivewood angel and my boot of glühwein.  Then we went to Giordano's for pizza, and Oakbrook Mall.  After a quick stop at Gram and Gramps' I had dad drop me off at Joe's mom's in Willowbrook for the "Stock the Bar" shower.  It was kind of weird.  The maid of honor went on and on about how drunk she was going to be at the wedding.  I haven't heard idiots BRAG like that since listening to Aaron rant at U of I.  You can always tell what kind of person someone is by how they takl about alcohol.  Anyone over 21 who makes a big deal about booze is just trying to get attention and make people think they're hip.  I probably shouldn't make random judgments about people I've only met once I guess.  Oh well.  I talked to John who I hadn' seen in a long time.  And the party was catered by Portillo's, so I can't complain too much :).   I had my first Portillo's italian beef sandwich with hot giardineira and holy crap.  I did not know what I was missing.  Who knew that cauliflower and carrots and peppers and who knows what else could be so damn good???  Then Krajniak drove me home in the ice storm. 

Sunday I helped dad with groceries and did homework until it was time to go to Gram adn Gramps' for Gram's 82nd bday.  She and Gramps are still getting used to the whole new situation and it's kind of sad but kind of sweet too.  Gram didn't eat much and Gramps yelled at us for bringing too much food.  Gramps beat me at the Crossword puzzle in the Sunday Trib.  Then Gramps was joking about how we used up every plate and fork in the house adn he was getting dishwasher hands.  So I made the mistake of offering to help (because it was already all done).  whoops.  I'm sure I won't hear the end of that one for a while.  

Monday I had to finish up my portfolio for GER 448.  Three hours driving to and from the city just to hand a binder to my professor.  Sigh.  At least I abused my printing priveledges to print it all out.  Gotta get SOMETHING out of a 3 hour drive.  Karate was fun.  We did sparring drills for the first time in like a year, so my right foot has a nice blister forming, and my right calf is sore.  Then we did kata.  I guess I'm not going to test this time around.  The curse of the green belt remains. 

Today I helped mom's kids paint their volcano and pick out some good facts to share with the class about volcanos.  Man, some of these kids are off in their own little world.  As they were painting the rest of the class was working on something, and my group kept talking and talking and talking.  Mostly they were talking about the episode of Spongebob, where he and Patrick pretend to be married and have the baby clam... Sadly I knew exactly what they were talking about, but that's beside the point.  I kept asking them to quiet down and I don't think they even heard me.  They wanted to talk about their shows so they talked about their shows.  

Only two more assignments to go and the semester is OVER.  My portfolio for ED 432 is almost done, but I still have  a few things left, and then the paper for GER 448 that the grad students have to do.  Friday morning at 9am I am DONE DONE DONE!  

Strange and Stupid things in the news...  Santa is too fat.  Santa shouldn't be allowed to say "ho ho ho" because it's offensive to black women.  Santa can't say Merry Christmas because it's offensive to non Christians.  Seriously people, get a LIFE. 

One of mom's friends has a son who is a freshman in high school.  Apparently he was really bored in class (while they were talking about diversity), and drew a picture of a plane bombing the middle east.  Now, I'm not trying to condone this or anything.  But he was suspended for 10 days, and the principal said that the school was thinking about pressing charges for a hate crime.  a hate crime.  what the hell are they thinking?  the mentality of school administrators baffles me.  hasn't anyone taken any educational psychology courses?  this disgusts me.  although, in my favor, the kid takes German, and the mom asked me to come over and help him keep up with it, so that's a little bit of extra tutoring for the holidays.  

speaking of the holidays, if anyone needs a last minute gift idea for me, i wouldn't say no to a severed horse head pillow from The Godfather :)

now back to putting my laundry away so when Helen comes up this weekend she has a place to see the floor.  :)  I haven't seen her in like a year. :( 

so glad that my time at OPRFHS is almost zur ende gekommen

well i'm sitting at the computer lab with nothing better to do until class starts at 4, so i might as well post... i apologize if i rant about the girl across from me who has been sniffling and sneezing CONSTANTLY without using a kleenex, or the girl behind me who has been holding a conversation with someone on the other side of the room, which stops only when she calls someone on her damn cell phone, or the conversation TWO ROWS away that i can still hear....

micki's birthday went fine on tuesday.  i bought her the box set of the Anne of Green Gables books.  So Helen, you're still set to buy her some vodka.  we still haven't gone out for her birthday dinner.  i think it's going to be lunch this coming saturday at pizzaria uno's downtown. 

thursday dad took the day off and scheduled a repair dude from sears to come between 8 and noon to fix the dryer, and from 1 to 5 to fix the furnace.  i got home at one and the dude for the dryer still had not come yet, and had not called saying he would be late.  dad called sears to let them know that he purposefully scheduled them at different times because they had to work in the same 2' by 3' space.  around 1:30 the furnace guy comes.  he cleans it out, pokes around and leaves.  after he leaves it stops working.  then the dryer guy comes around 4:30, still hasn't figured out what a fucking phone looks like, and spends thirty seconds putting in a new igniter.  after he leaves, the dryer guy comes back and puts in a new igniter there.  ok.  we now have two working items.  thank you.  you may have wasted 5 hours of my dad's time, but at least you fixed something.

observation went fine last week.  i tallied and organized all of the permission slips, money, lunch choices, and parent chaperone numbers.  (then i didn't observe yesterday and the CT mutilated my nicely organized list).  my professor came to observe me, but all i really did was wander around during the III/IV class and help them translate words into German for their Timeline of the Berlin Wall posters.  The posters came out pretty good.  I'm impressed by their creativity.  I liked the one group that put in random sections of exposed bricks.  and the group of all guys whose timeline was nice, but very utilitarian with lousy handwriting and commented "man, we really could have used a girl in our group"  *I* laughed. 

i went to observe again Thursday and I was helping the students translate more words.  One kid had a bunch of stick figures holding up signs that said "Freiheit!" and "Einheit!" (Freedom and Unity) and asked me for other similar words. 
Me:  "how about 'gleichheit' - it means equality
Student: "ooh, that's a good one"
Teacher: "what's a good one?"
Student: "gleichheit"
Teacher: "sameness? why would you use that?"
Student: (pointing at me) "he said it means equality"
Teacher: "no, it doesnt, it means 'sameness' "
now i know for a fact that gleichheit means equality thanks to Herr Murray's constant stream of "Freiheit, Gleichheit, Solidaritaet!"  not to mention that i have never in my life heard of the word sameness (although i'm no english teacher).  this was irritating.

i don't remember what i did this weekend. saturday rory and i went to see Hitman with the dude from Die Hard 4.  it was alright.  nothing exciting but it could have been a lot worse.  i bought a student-teaching outfit.  i clean up good.

sunday i went to try and retrieve some data from Jenny's dead computer.  whenever her computer boots it says "Master File Table Corrupt" and will not load windows.  so i start poking around.  she has two hard drives, C and J.  C is the main one, with windows loaded, and has her documents, J has her music.  now jenny can re-rip most of her music but there's a hell of a lot, so J is her priority.  I manage to get the computer working fine, but only if J is not plugged in.  so we get the stuff from C, download it to a flash drive and put it on her new computer.  nothing i do can salvage the J drive though.  i try plugging it into her new computer.  it is recognized in the hardware manager, but you can't see it in the hardware profile, or through windows explorer.  i try and boot her old computer from a boot disk.  i can get to the J drive in dos, but i can't see any files there.  i tried making a boot disk from NTFS.com, but it didn't work and then i got tired of trying.  so i was minimally successful.  i might try again later.  hmm... thoughs?

yesterday i dropped off some food and stuff at Gram and Gramps and then came to class.  last day of GER 448!  we still have stuff due, but no more lectures!  after class we went over to Jak's Tap for some expensive burgers and mediocre fries.  i had to miss karate to go, but i guess it was worth it.  she talked about some of our different options for graduation with a degree in second language education which was cool.  she mentioned caitlin's school in VT and some other places where the undergrads could go to get their masters degrees.  she did suggest the MAT programs in language over a MEd program, while the two other MEd students and I looked at each other.  she's also heavily research bent though, so it's cool.  who knows, maybe a PhD IS a possibility?  I'd definitely have to find myself a spot at a teaching-oriented school and not a research-oriented one though. 

today i observed.  i was somewhat vindicated about the teacher arguing with me over the translation of gleichheit when she started arguing with a students grandmother who is in town from Switzerland for the holidays about the translation of the word "checkers" (as in the game). 
Teacher: "what do they call checkers in German?"
Gma: "we call it checkers
Teacher: "well I think they call it Damenspiel"
Gma: "no, we call it Checkers"
Teacher: "no, they call it Damenspiel, see it says so on my card"
I wanted to throw something. 

another stupid thing...
so i got a call a few weeks ago from Mather High School saying that they were happy to have me for student teaching in the spring, they sent information to the CTE (UIC council on teacher education) and could I come in to meet my cooperating teacher?  I call back and say sure, we set it up... Yesterday, German Sara says that I better go in to CTE to make sure that's ok because they can make my life hell if i piss them off.  so today i go in there, the head lady (who makes Frau Engelmann look like an actual Engel) was not there, but the secretary says that yeah they have my information, it's all set but they aren't going to send out an acceptance letter to me until next week.  she suggests that i email the head lady to run it by her.  so i do that, and i get an email back saying that she "can't confirm placement" until the letter goes out, and that the letter will tell me what to do about contacting my school.  uhhhh.  so even though your secretary has confirmed the placement, even though i didn't contact them, they contacted me from my information which CTE gave them... i'm supposed to... what? 

everyone is a fucking moron.

someone has to work on their japanese...

the rest of the weekend turned out a lot busier than expected.  saturday i was woken up early to help plan the day around a broken dryer and lots of wet laundry.  i was originally supposed to go to Palatine Grandma's for lunch with Dad, and then out with Rory...  so mom was thinking maybe I shouldn't go with dad, i should just go to the laundromat and get stuff done.  But then, I in my infinite wisdom pointed out that Grandma does in fact have... a washer and dryer.  So we loaded up the van with laundry (mostly mine) and drove north.  We grabbed Portillos for lunch.  Gram hadn't had their food before, so we got her a bowl of minestrone.  she liked it.  we watched the John Denver movie,  The Christmas Gift on Hallmark.  It's a cute movie that you can't watch all that often.  Five minutes in, Grandma says "I bet he falls in love with a local girl and saves teh town from something"  But it was cool to see the mom from Malcolm and the dad from That 70's Show ("can you fly Bobby?") in a movie from the early 80's.  It ended up taking longer to get all the laundry done, and then Uncle MIke, Aunt Lois and Tory came back from St. Louis, with dinner, so we stayed longer.  Me like dinner.  Oh, and I forgot to ask Aunt lois about the whole joining facebook thing.  WEEEEIIIIRRD. 

Sunday dad and i did a lot of shopping.  We left church and went to Target, where we bought expensive chocolate that we couldnt' find in Dublin, and I got a firesafe.  It was time to  trade up and give Micki my lockbox for college.  Now I'll feel better about keeping my backed up files somewhere safe, as well as other things like car papers and my passport... Then we went to Kohls and i got jeans on sale for $12.  Being a dude is awesome sometimes.  We dropped a coffee off at mom's school and went to Borders, where I got micki a birthday present.  only in our family would I buy a book for someone's 18th birthday present.  i feel kind of lame.  like there should be some vodka hidden in it or something.  then we went to Caputos to buy more rapini for Gramps.  We got home and I fell asleep on the couch watching What's Up Doc? with Barbara Streisand.  It's funnier than expected.  In an over the top slapsticky kind of way.  

Today I observed.  I think today could have been my last day hours-wise, but I want to keep going through next thursday so I can go on the fieldtrip to the Christkindlmarkt downtown.  :)  Although I suppose it's not kosher to buy glühwein in front of high schoolers.  damn.  I did a lot of photocopying today, which was alright.  

After observing i went to drop food off at Gram and Gramps'  I think it was an on-edge day over there.   Gram has a doctor appointment tomorrow where I think she's going to get some not-so-great news, so Gramps was extra short.  Now, in as far back as I can remember, Gramps has never used a telephone.  and Gram is usually pretty quick and to the point whenever she uses it.  I remember when I was a kid and she'd call and we lived in Rhode Island and I expected to be bombarded with questions about school and all that, and all I'd get was "Matthew?!  Is your mother home?"  anyway... so with Gram a little bit slowed down adn hampered by oxygen cables, Gramps has inherited phone duty in the house.  while i was there the phone rang, and i hear
Gramps: HELLO!
Gramps: Who is this! (notice the exclamation point and no question mark)
Gramps: HELLO?
Gramps: HELLO!
Gramps: Who is this???
Gramps: Who is 'me' ?
Gramps: Hello?
Gramps: Jesus Christ Dorothy!  If you're not going to answer the phone, don't answer the phone! 
appareently Gram made the mistake of answering, possibly when she heard him ylling, possibly before? I dont konw.  All i know is that a phone callthat was answered by the two of them at the same time caused mass chaos. 

Class went fine.  We met over at Student Center East (the Union) which made it difficult to concentrate on class with Seinfeld, then Friends, thn Raymond playing ont he large flat screen twenty feet away.   But i got through it.

Karate was pretty good.  We went through the belt test for the brown belts who are testing this weekend.  It was a good workout.  Part of it was a competition basics round where they barked japanese at us adn we had to do it.  I know some of the simpler commands, but none of the fancy ones.  and it was only fancy ones whenever iw as up there. i felt bad when i messed up a knife-hand block, but then rory messed up a front punch and i felt better.  after the lower belts when home we practiced some shuto and heianso (sp?) strikes which were new and different.  

now i should get to bed.  another long day tomorrow.  observing.  and it appears that my professor is going to observe me... observe the kids take a test on wednesday.  lovely.  

AND, it's Micki's 18th bday.  so we're going out for dinner.  I made a joke about getting her some cigars.  Mom didn't get it.  Then we laughed a lot about buying cigars for an asthmatic runner.  

good night. 

every time the news reports people dying in bangladesh, i get the song "moves her body like a cyclone" in my head

mmmm thanksgiving is definitely the tastiest of all holidays.

Monday was long.  I woke up, went to Oak Park, went to UIC to attempt to do homework, didn't get enough done, went to class, discussed the "speaking lesson" went to Karate for what Mr. Brien termed the "Turkey Burn" in which he worked us twice as hard so we would earn that extra slice of pie.  I'm not much of a pie fan, but we have other foods.  

Tuesday was also long.  Lot's of driving.  Oak Park, UIC, Naperville to tootor, then Palatine to help Grandma put up her xmas decorations.  She was supposed to go to St. Louis for Turkey Day with the Mary Kate fam, the Uncle Mike fam, Aunt Mary Lou and Uncle Dave to visit the Brunos, but Gram has a kidney infection and pneumonia.  My three grandparents take turns being the sickest.  It's awesome.  So I did an hours worht of hauling heavy things upstairs tuesday, and then a couple hours worth of decoration Wednesday morning.  Then I came home to Mom being sick.  Glen was however in town and gathering people to meett at Giordano's in Downers, so I went off to find Glen, Jen, Rich and Krajniak there.  There was some question about whether Joe was coming.  He and Alina had been at the mall doing wedding things, and were apparently on their way when Krajniak called to ask what they wanted on their pizza, Joe answered, said "oh fuck" and dropped the phone.  Alina called a few minutes later and said "we are unexpectedly unable to come" and that was it.  Sid and I felt the need to Kick Joe at which point they called us to say that Joe had gotten into a fender bender and was waiting for the tow truck.  whoops.  Then we retired back to Casa de Krajniak, where Bobby was having some sort of LAN party in which everyone could see what he was doing because he was using the tv as his monitor and everyone else was using laptops.  I had no idea what was going on.  I think it was also the first time that I'd been in the house and the entire Krajniak family was also there.  It was not however a time when I left the restaurant after Krajniak and arrived at his house after him.  No, I did in fact leave about 5 iminutes after and arrive ten minutes before.  Go figure.  The presence of all the people made us decide to go to Rich's.  He has a pretty nice townhome in Naperville, pretty close to me actually.  We watched the episode of Top Gear that has a dude on inline skates with 3 jet engines strapped to his back race a car down the track.  Car won by about 1.5 seconds.  I was impressed.  The stupid guy from American Idol was on the show and made an ass out of himself later.  Rich's cats stayed hidden under his bed but i still became sneezy after a while.  

Thursday, Dad, Micki and I went to Uncle Jimmys for the Turkey Day feast.  Joey stopped by in his CPD uniform for a few minutes.  Gram and Gramps were happy to see him.  I sat with Dan, Bonkica, Meagan, her boyfriend and Ian at the dinner table.  Meagan's boyfriend commented on the awesomeness of the Italian Thanksgiving Feast.  Mike said "Meatloaf, smeatloaf, double-beatloaf." as he dished himself out mashed potatos, and i think about eight people yelled out "I hate meatloaf!" in response.  It was awesome.  We ate from 2 to about 4 and then some of us fell asleep at the table, some of us fell asleep watching tv and some of us sat around.  Uncle Jimmy and Meagan had everyone laughing as they were retelling stories from their trip to Italy in '02.   Meagan and Jimmy both have a good gift for storytelling.  Eric was playing with a pay phone he bought on Ebay.  it works, now he just has to figure out how to mount the thing on his wall, it's a heavy one.  I talked to Uncle Eddie and Gram and Gramps a bit.  Gramps liked his bottle of Pagliacci olive oil i found.  He liked it even more after he got the chance to lecture my dad on how to pronounce "Pagliacci" so that was fun.  When I got home, Dad and I watched Dutch the traditional Thanksgiving showing.  That movie is hilarious.  

Today Sid came over and the three of us went to Fry's Electronics to check out the deals.  I got another SD card for free, a program that claims it can copy DVDs for free, and the new Bond movie for $7.  Dad got the SD card, an XD card, a flash drive, and a printer for less than the price of the ink cartridge alone.  Sid bought one of everything including a digital camera, a HDTV tuner card, and a remote control helicopter, and a program for creating your own Claymation.  I don't pretend to understand why, but I enjoy shopping with the impulse buyer.  then, i FINALLY gave him his irish whistle, which he says will annoy Doug to no end.  

Tutoring today went fine.  I listened to the radio tell me stories about idiots shopping at woodfield.  some guy got there at 4am, shopped for three hours, and only bought a sweater.  then he complained about the bad deals.  uhh, they're online.  for everyone to see.  if there's nothing you want, then today is probably not a good day to go shopping at 4am.  then dad adn i went to Walgreens to get our xmas photo cards done.  which, i guess I'm going to make Helen get in the future ;-)

it does not feel like 4pm.  I've been up for 11 hours.  maybe it's time for a nap. 

in which Matt meets his cousins

Rory and I went to see No Country for Old Men last night.  It was fucking terrible.  Although I should have realized that anything from the wonderful people who brought us Fargo, and O Brother would not amount to much.  The opening was pretty good, with some crazy dude killing people with the pneumtic gun that they use to kill cattle, and a down-on-his-luck hunter finding $2 million at the scene of a drug deal gone sour, but then it pretty much ended.  There was one good gun battle, a few good action sequences, and for every good scene, there were two scenes of Tommy Lee Jones blathering on and on about a dream he had where he was walking throught he mountains or some shit like that.  The main character was killed off screen, and they show his body at a weird angle, which leads you to believe that maybe he's not dead, so for the next twenty minutes you're waiting for him to maybe pop out of a closet and shoot the bad guy, but no appreantly he really did die and you just don't know.  And lastly, I'm pretty sure that if you took out the main character's wife and her family, Woody Harrelson, lots of unnamed Mexicans, Tommy Lee Jones, and pretty much everyone else in the movie except for the main two people, you actually wouldn't change the story all that much.  Honestly the only way I could make sense of the movie was to pretend that the killer didn't really exist, but actually he was Tommy Lee Jones's evil split personality.  That is the ONLY way this movie makes ANY lick of sense.  Also, Tommy Lee Jones's lines were written to make him sound like a southern cowboy and he says the dumbest stuff like "I'm fixin to quit this room"  to which Rory replied "I'm fixin to quit this movie" (after I explained what I though 'quit the room' meant.

Today I went to Westchester to visit Gram and Gramps and see relatives that I haven't seen in a long long time.  Gram's brother Ed came up from Kentucky for the weekend.  With him came his wife Rosemary, their oldest two kids, Tommy and Susan, Tommy's daughter Krista, and Krista's baby, Reagan.  I think the last time I saw any of them was at Ed and Rosemary's son Mike's wedding in 1993.  Uncle Paul and Aunt Mary were there too.  I've seen Uncle Paul like eight times in my life even though he lives in Riverside.  Uncle Paul's daughter Summer was there.  She's my mom's cousin, but she's the same age as my oldest cousin Joey.  I havent seen her since we were kids either.  She's on husband number two and baby number one, whom I both met today.  Aunt Susan and Bobby were there.  I know them!  Susan is mom's cousin.  Bobby is probably the second cousin to whom I'm closest.  He and I go golfing every now and again.  Susan's step son Michael was there.  I haven't seen him since we were in High School, and that time I think I might have seen him at McDonalds.  Try explaining to your friends that the kid two tables over, who lives in the same town as you, might be your cousin but you're not sure, because you havent seen him in five years.  I felt like an idiot when I had to ask him who he was.  But at least I said his name before he did when he said he was Bobby's stepbrother.  Michael was there with his wife and their FOUR KIDS(all girls).  I couldn't imagine being 24 and having four kids.  Uncle Jimmy just looked at him and said "give it up!  you're never goingto have a boy.  it's NOT in the cards!"  Uncle Sam said "I'd be locked in the garage with the car running if that was me"  Michael's been to Iraq twice with the 101st Airborne, and is now doing his last four years with the National Guard.  

I went back and forth between bowling and ferrying people to Gram and Gramps.  The plan was to meet somewhere close, so people could go visit in groups and I think it worked out really well.  Although apparently Aunt Anne didn't like it so she refused to come.  But hey I think the world would explode if my grandma and her siblings were ever actually in the same room with one another, so it's probably best this way?  I did pretty good at the bowling.  My first game was a 148, beating Michael by one pin.  It was at this point that Aunt Susan informed me that the high winner would be awarded a trophy, and put in charge of planning the next event to pass the trophy.  I thought that was a really good way to do it.   My second game I had to bowl for both me and Uncle Sam.  poor Bobby had to bowl for himself, Krista, and eventually his mom too.  I bowled better for Uncle Sam than I did for myself.  Summer tied my high score in game two, but since my other game beat her other game, that was determined to be the tie breaker.  So I'm in charge of planning the nextfamily bowling tournament.  Watching the four little girls run around was pretty funny.   The youngertwo, (3 and 2) were absolutely crazy.  The 3 year old would constantly run over to the tables where other kids were having birthday parties and start trying to take the presents, then run up and down the lane, then run and grab onto Krista as some sort of safe point, while Cassy or Michael or Susan, whoever wasn't occupied with the 2 year old would chase after them.  It seemed like while they weren't exactly the most well behaved kids, they were a happy family.  Like the parents didn't get angry and yell.  I thought that was pretty impressive in itself for two 24 year olds with four kids.

after that we went over to Gram and Gramps' for a while.  We talked about the different methods Eric and I have for clothes shopping.  Eric really wanted to go to Nordstroms with his mom and Dan while he's home for the holiday to look for good deals.  Eric is the spoiled one.  AUntie Karen had been calling him all day trying to figure out what the evening's shopping plan was, Dan took off work early to go with them, and no one could get ahold of him until he called Auntie Karen saying "I'm home, why aren't you here, we need to leave right now"  I laughed and said that I'd once made it to Kohls and back in 20 minutes with 2 new pairs of pants.  Uncle Sam said that if it didn't come at Menards or Home Depot, he didn't buy it.  

I fetched pizza for mom and Gram and Gramps and then went to hang out with Der David.  We made a brief appearance at Heidi and Natalie's new apartment.  The four of us studied abroad together.  And Natalie is a german teacher, so I figured it would be good to remind her that I'm getting my M.Ed. and will be teachign German next year.  FIND ME A JOB!  I didn't quite know what to expect, I assumed some sort of social gathering, but other than like five friends of the girls, David and I were the only ones there under 50. I did laugh a lot when heidi's mom or aunt or something said "the senior bus is leaving"  David and I sat in the kitchen talking the entire time and then we headed out.   

Tomorrow I might be going up to Gram H's to put up xmas decorations but I dont know yet. 

starting in the fifth frame, i'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to bowl left handed

While observing today, the kids in 2nd year were acting out skits from Rapunzel. In pairs they were pretending to be the Prinz and 'a friend of the princes' riding through the woods when they hear the sad song that rapunzel sang that got the prinz's attention.  then they had to improvise a dialogue.  Frau E. was the Rapunzel, locked in the tower, singing a sad song.  The best group started with a kid clapping his hands over his ears and shrieking "oh my god, a dying dog!"

This whole thing with the 'moment of silence' is getting out of hand.  the kids are arguing about it and debating it left and right, every time they're not on content stuff.  Someone should point out what idiots they all are.  I don't feel like I'm in a position to do so.

Last night I went to Krajniak's free bowling party.  He won 2 hours of free bowling, and chips and salsa for 16 people by dropping his business card in a bowl or something.  I went but didn't know anyone because they were all people from his work.  But it was alright.  4 of us were there to start and it was a good warm up round.  I barely scored over 100, but took second to Krjniak's 130.  the second game more people were showing up and i improved to a 147, taking second again to one of Krajniak's work friends.  Then the third game we had a full 8 people and decided to wager a round of drinks on the outcome of the team's score.  My lack of money must have kicked in because I kicked ass and led our team to victory with a 157.  We won 478 to 384.  Didn't even need to bowl the tenth frame.  But then everyone left.  So I didn't get a free drink anyway.  Lame.  I did however win my own free 2 hours of bowling with salsa and all that that's good sometime Jan-Feb of next year.  

i suppose i should get back to work now... 

that's a-no gouda!

Hmm, it's been a while, Mr. internet. 

Classes have been going fine.  Two weeks ago in the Tuesday class the prof wasn't clear on what to do for a response paper, so anyone who turned one in last week was declared done for the semester.  so THAT's good.  one class down, two to go.  

the monday class continues to plod along.  we're working on different lesson plans to reflect structured input, structured output, writing, speaking, listening, reading.  i'm giving the matt harring half assed approach and it seems to be working fine.  eventually i'll put it all together in the TaskStream format.  so that should be alright.  then, because i'm one of 3 grad students in the class, i also need to be working on my final paper for the semester.  it's going to be on student motivation.  like most of my papers.  i keep writing about motivation.  i find it fascinating.  mostly because i have none myself.  i requested one article through interlibrary loan like a month and a half ago and it finally came in yesterday.  

the wednesday class is going alright.  i dont have much left to do, other than the fieldwork journal, and our group presentation.  and all i have to do for the group presentation is find some articles to make the class read.  i donwloaded a bunch off of the online uic library site, now i just have to read them to see if they suck or not.  the two groups that presented last night were boring as shit.  one was about tracking, and one was about small schools.  and i think all i walked away with was a reaffirmation of everything i already knew about two of the most boring issues in education.  

observing is going alright.  i have 45 hours or so down.  i started teaching some in the first year class.  and i dont know if it's because the teacher is a control freak or because i suck, but she keeps interrupting me while i'm doing stuff.  today i went over 1 page of new vocab with them, and then a worksheet of words to translate, which they were supposed to do for homework, and generally had about three out of the twenty words down.  i got through ten of them.  the CT did words 3-6 though.  i dont know why.  i have to get my shit together to interview her tomorrow for the fieldwork journal.  

today on my way to observe, i saw a woman on a cell phone in an suv BACKING down the interstate because she'd missed her exit.  not to mention that it was the MANNHEIM road exit on the westbound Ike.  which is probably the biggest exit west of the city.  it has it's own exit lane for about a mile.  at least 4 signs.  sighh.  

my computer seems to have some lovely new spyware that ADAware and SpyBot can't kill.  I've managed to get around most of it, but it keeps popping back, and I don't have the time to deal with it for another month.  it seems like most days of the week i leave around 7:20am and get home between 9 and 10:30 pm.  then i promptly fall asleep until the next day.  i usually have a few open hours in the middle where i can't seem to get much done.  what FUN.

this weekend i went down to urbana and helen and i ate a lot of FOOD.  friday we made gourmet mac and cheese GF style.  Helen asked me to look around whole foods for manchego cheese, which is some type of sheep cheese.  i wandered around what i thought was the cheese section at least three times (based on the number of times i passed the gouda, saying "That's-a-no-gouda!") before i noticed that there was ANOTHER shelf of cheese around one more corner.  Helen wasn't very pleased with my joke, but she seems to have adopted it nicely.  heh heh heh.  

Saturday we went out for 2 year dinner at Biaggis!  Biaggi's is so damn delicious.  Then Sunday we made enchiladas from scratch.   the corn tortillas involved corn flour and water and were pretty good.  then we got one last custard cup before they close for the winter.  cold fudge is awesome.  

now i should probably get back to homework.  

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 

COURAGE to start? ENDURANCE to go on? THE WILL to finish?

sorry for the lateness of this post

 

Friday, I went to observe.  For me, the school day started with a trip to an assembly!  I saw the Tradition of Excellence assembly, in which the school brings in two alumni who have made contributions to their field and the community-at-large.  This year’s two figures were pretty impressive.  The first was Charles Carey, the chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade.  He is an impressive figure, but not the best speaker.  He kind of stood there and talked about how luck played a large part in getting where he is today and mentioned that OPRF is a good school… I got the impression that no one had really told him what to expect or what was expected of him.  Luckily the second dude is a motivational speaker by profession, so he did a kick ass job.  It was John Register, a qualifier for the 1988 and 1992 olympics in hurdles, who had a bad landing one day at practice that resulted in the amputation of his leg.  Less than two years later he was competing in the Paralympics as a swimmer, and soon after as a long jumper, where he beat a world record to get second place.  So that was pretty cool to see. 

 

Deutsch Unterricht was fun.  I don’t really remember much of what we did but I helped two first year students interpret Rumpelstilzchen.  The one girl was from Turkey and said she understood the story fine, but couldn’t answer the questions as well, while the other student answered the questions fine, but couldn’t understand the story.  If I’d have had more time I would have gotten the two of them to help each other, but since I didn’t have much time, don’t really know them, I just read the story sentence by sentence and asked them questions for this round.  Then in Ger 2 and Ger 3 I just kinda helped out on random stuff as I do… 

 

Then I went to visit the grandparents, and was immediately put on leaf raking duty.  Uncle Sam stopped by with his leaf vaccum thing and between the two of us we had the front yard done in no time flat.  Then Gramps put us to work with a garbage can (he has like 30) that had a spot for wheels, but no wheels.  So uncle sam found a piece of metal, cut it to size, used gramps’ 90 year old tap set to put threads on the end of it, drilled holes in the bottom of the garbage can to hold a wooden block, searched all over the crawl space to find a proper sized conduit holder, and in effect, built an axle from scratch in about an hour and a half.  I’m continually impressed by the things that he can do.  I’m also continually impressed by the things that can be built from scratch by the crap laying around at my grandparents home.  Then I had to go tutor, which went fine. 

 

Helen arrived around 6:30, and she went for a run while I cleaned and bought some barbecue fixins.  Then around 8, people started to show up.  Isla was on time.  She had a picture from work that was an x-ray of a dog that came in to the animal clinic with a barbecue stake through its heart.  In and out of the right ventricle.  Apparently that’s the good ventricle to get stabbed through, as the dog went home with no problems two days later.  Luckily the stake plugged its own hole so to speak until they got it to the vet.  Then, they apparently just kind of pinched it shut and as it came out the one side, suture suture suture, and then as it came out the far side, suture suture suture.  Wow.  Jenny came after I bribed her with promises of a pass to use the Chicago öffentliches verkehrsnetz, that my stupid college makes me buy even though I don’t use it.  Juarez and Kathy came, Krajniak came late and left about thirty minutes later, the loser.  And Jason came too.  ::crack::  eventually, people seemed to be cold sitting around outside, but only Isla Jen and Helen were near the fire, so I think that’s part of it.  So after we ate, I brought us inside and they all stood around staring at me, waiting for me to entertain them.  I brought up a bunch of dvds that no one wanted to watch and I brought up Settlers, which Jenny demanded we play.  It was met with mixed results.  Helen didn’t play, and Kathy’s comment was “wait, I wouldn’t be sitting here if I’d known not playing was an option!”  Juarez seemed to think it was ok.  He talked about the online version, which I think Scott and Cassandra have.  Healy was pretty in to it and enjoyed himself, and Jenny of course liked it.  Next time I’ll just invite Healy and Jen for a Settler’s party, and everyone else for a something-else party I guess. 

 

Saturday we slept IN, and then went downtown for Helen to attend a GF cooking thing at the Whole Foods in Lincoln Park.  It was $30 and came with an autographed book.  I probably could have sat in the back and waited but I didn’t want to intrude, so I wandered around Lincoln Park, sat and watched idiots try and get into a closed El station, then sat and watched idiots try to park in a busy as hell parking lot, and wandered around Best Buy, making lists of movies to buy when I’m not all-but-unemployed.  Observing all day and going to class all night sucks.  After the class, we went to walk around in the Loop.  I parked by UIC and we walked in.  We looped around and around for 5.5 miles, meeting up with David for some tea and to chat, which was good.  I hadn’t seen David since my last barbecue on my birthday, and I got to hear about his new job, his breakup with the GF and all that good stuff.  Helen was bored with my walking tour of the city after a while and then we headed back to the burbs for dinner.  Micki’s team got 3^rd at State for XC which they were pleased with.  Oh, and Helen, Shawn’s brother IS in the book.  It says he won regionals, took sixth in sectionals, and 30^th at state.  Helen and I went to Paneras for dinner, where the girl behind the counter stole $2.69 by not giving me back my gift card claiming there was nothing on it.  This is what I get for A- using multiple gift cards and confusing the kid and B- not saying anything when I noticed. 

 

Today we woke up and headed west for the annual Governor’s European Cross Country Run, just outside the quad cities in Iowa.  Awesome as always.  Not knowing exactly how long it would take, dad left at 8, picked up two of micki’s friends and stopped for lunch.  Helen and I left at 9:30, stopped at the grocery store, ate in the car, and we arrived about five minutes apart from each other.  Not too bad.  Uncle mike and James showed up a little later, and we had a good run.   The course was a hell of a lot wetter than previous years, which I rather enjoyed.  There’s a really windy creek that the course usually crosses 3-4 times and this year we definitely crossed it about 10-12 times.  There were two rope swings, one rappelling spot and two points you had to climb up a rope, half a dozen hay bale piles across the path, and more dead branches than you can count.  James finished a little over an hour, Helen and I finished in an hour forty, and the girls finished in about 2 hours today.  I’m celebrating the first time beating Micki ever.  The race this year was a nice 5.4 miles, so I think we did pretty well.  I didn’t have to walk as much as last year, and there were a lot more PEOPLE around us this time too.  We didn’t bother finding any prize ribbons this year either, although we did find the people who had found the grand prize… a bike.  Man, I think if I saw a bike in the woods, I’d just leave it there.  at one point, helen and I were standing waist deep in a creek, waiting for them to get it up the far bank.  Then we turned and found a different part of the bank to climb out at, only to discover that the girls with the bike, failing at their original spot, followed us, so I had to be nice and help them, thus getting stuck behind them again.  I got nice and soaked but didn’t lose any shoes.  We definitely saw a few shoeless people, from the muddy areas we went through.  And a deer, who was running as fast as he could in the other direction.  J

After the race, we headed back to aunt lois and uncle mike’s for some showers and food.  I’m still amazed by the fact that half a dozen people can shower in a row at their house and all get hot water.  For dinner, she made French fries, and Italian sausage.  I ate a lot.  Then dad and I split the drive home.  Now I should probably go to bed because I’m observing in the morning. 

the shirt does say "i'll do anything for a burrito"

Tuesday I went in to the office at OPRF to get a parking pass.  So I now can park in the faculty lot for the month of November at least.  No more paying meters!  Why didn't I do this the first day??  Tuesday's class was fine.  I'm starting to warm up to being there, so I've started talking to the kids more and helping them, rather than standing awkwardly in the corner wondering what I should be doing while the teacher walks around in her haphazard way.  I don't mean to sound bad about my CT.  I say she's disorganized, but it's more that *I* couldn't function in her chaotic manner, it works for her.  Then Tuesday's class was fine.  It continues to irritate me that Tuesday, the day I only have to be at UIC for an hour is the day that consistently gives me the most trouble finding a parking spot on the street so I end up having to pay to park in the lot.  Grrr.  Class was a guest speaker who talked about Math and Diversity Education.  Yes, I fell asleep. 

Wednesday I observed again.  The teacher brought in macaroni and ham for the 3rd/4th year kids because it was Emil's favorite meal in the book, and she bought in jelly filled donuts because they were talking about Berlin.  I ate one to be polite, but I really don't like jelly filled donuts.  I don't really like jelly filled anything to be honest.  I'm still working up a lesson on reflexivverben and 'was machst du gern in deiner Freizeit"  to do with the kids coming up.

Wednesday's class was alright.  We had a guest speaker who talked about NCLB, which was ok.  All he really did was bash the hell out of it and say how much it sucked from a teachers and an administrator's opinion.  But we already knew that for the most part so it wasn't really useful, but then he talked about how to act during an interview, the kinds of things that principals look for and the kind of questions we should be expected to answer and the kind of questions we should be asking, and that was really useful, so it evened out.  The dude was wired like an eight year old on a sugar high though.  He's the new principal of a school opening in the far western suburbs next year, so he's getting to build it from the ground up, which i suppose would make me rather excited too, so I won't make too much fun of him. 

After class I met up with Rory at the Westmont Chipotle for Boo-Rito Day.  Apparently at Chipotle if you show up dressed like a burrito, burrito bowl or taco on Halloween you get a free burrito.  Well I can't say no to that.  I wrapped an off-white towel around me, put strips of green, red, brown, and black construction paper all over my shirt and foiled my torso and head.  Rory had a giant necklace burrito bowl, complete with red wire basket, and thus we dined.  I was a little disappointed in my counterparts from the burrito eating world who merely wore an aluminum foil hat, or one tiny band of foil around the waist, but I suppose it's ok.  Then we went to the Wheaton one to get lunch for today :)  after the burrito eating, I went back to Oak Park to join up with Juarez, Kathy and Tom for some zombie movies.  We watched Planet Terror, half of that Grindhouse movie from last year, with Bruce Willis, Freddy Rodriguez, and Rose McGowan.  It wasn't that great, but I've seen a lot worse.  After that we watched the original Dawn of the Dead, not the remake, but the George Romero version.  It was laughable, but entertaining. 

Which leads me to my Poll of the [Insert Time Period Here]:
What do you enjoy more, Zombie movies, Vampire/Werewolf Movies, Stalker-slasher movies, or classic horror movies (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. of the 20s/30s)?

Today's objective is homework and some major room cleaning.  I have a floor!

improving your karattitude, one punch at a time

i woke up today at 7:17.  I normally leave around 7:30, because every minute you leave after 7:30, you have to add 5 for traffic.  I hate the suburbs.  It took me 15 minutes to make it past the light at College and BU because the damn light that shouldn't be there anyway was out and blinking.  I managed to make it to Oak Park with enough time to just make it in the door by the bell.  Which i shouldn't have to worry about because the teacher has taken to showing up about 2/3 of the way through announcements, like 4 minutes after the bell, anyway.  but the lame news is that the meter i've been parking at for the last two weeks QUADRUPLED it's price over the weekend.  It used to be 25 cents gets you an hour... so now i have to get there even earlier to find a parking spot and probably hike the rest of the way.  bullSHIT. 

observing went fine.  the first year kids were doing nach erzählungen for der froschkönig.  the second year kids were doing nach erzählungen for rumpelstilzchen.  the third/fourth year kids were finishing their skits for Emil und die Detektive, and starting on this poster about Berlin that I found a bunch of web pages for them to use.  next week I'm going to start getting my hands dirty with the entire class instead of just helping out one-on-one, by doing 'was machst du gern in deiner Freizeit' with the Ger I kids and reflexivverben with the third and fourth year kids.  it should be fun times.

class was fine.  we were supposed to start a half hour early and get out a half hour early because there was this guest speaker from McGraw Hill talking about teaching culture in the foreign language classroom.  he was pretty cool, his stories about how he's from venezuela, and the stupid things he did accidentally when he went back there after living in the US for fifteen years, were pretty funny.  I saw Inma there, my professor from last semester, and i saw Rott, who was my advisor for a while, still technically is, and has no idea who i am.  i should have gone up to her and just started talking to her.  but she probably would have just said "i dont know who you are" to my face and i would have looked like an idiot.  i pointed her out to sarah, and my irritation must have shown through.  her response was "ok, i'll trip her if she comes near us" then we went to class, where we did stupid busy work activities and definitely didn't get out a half hour early because my teacher has about as much sense of how long things are going to take as my 3 year old cousin.  she also passed back our midterms where she definitely added wrong and gave me a 87.5 instead of a 92.  she probably did it because she's lonely at her office hours.  every week she begs us to stop by.  looks like i'll be making an appearance this week. 

karate was good.  rory and i made fun of sensei brien about story time and he proceeded to tell us a twenty minute long story while the rest of the class warmed up.  then we did a lot of ab and glut exercises that supposedly will help our kicks come exam time.  when the hell is my exam again?  then we worked on kata, and he mostly had good things to say about mine.  so that was cool.

ok, now i'm really going to bed so i can get up for observing tomorrow.