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...
