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...
