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But then it was settled and I have 7 remaining. Sigh of relief. I am going on vacation on Friday and do NOT have time to make an appointment to get that figured out. whew.
Oh yes, I am going to Philly. :) and DC :) and will be gone for a week! Another vacation! :)
Then I am moving. I have an apartment all lined up, I just need to fax the lease on over with my signature on it and we are all set! Yes! :)
It's so cute. I will post pictures when the land lady sends them to me! :)
okbye!
- Mood:
silly
( READ ON FOR DRAMA!!!! )
So this is what I get. I guess. If I want an intelligent person who can accurately use the English language, I don' t know where I should go. I have very specific needs and wants, and I want them to be fulfilled. I guess what I"m looking for is a more romantic version of what I already have. (or sort of don't have...) My Andrew + some more romantic ideas. hahahhaha. wight. we'll see. heh.
- Mood:
annoyed
First, I said that I would sit in Wayland with my two aunts at their yard sale. I brought a buttload of my jewelry to try to sell so that I can make room for more goodies!
On my way out this morning, I decided to stop at Dunkin Donuts because I am super addicted and need to eat that once a week. Ok, or not, but anyway! While driving in, I saw a large bus of tourists had recently pulled in and almost decided not to go in. But the scent of bagels and iced coffee got the better of me, so I went in. There were many people just chilling around the dining area, but no one was in my way at the cashier.. I thought I heard Spanish on my way in, but couldn't be sure. Then these three people come up behind me and start discussing the different flavors of donuts that are there... and then I realize that they are speaking FRENCH! So I mustered up all of the confidence I could find and asked them where they were from (Marseilles), and what they were doing here (HUGE touristy trip along the East Coast & Canada). I hope I didn't seem rude, but I just wanted to practice my French this summer for real.
I get so nervous around native speakers - like full-on blushing and butterflies and shaking - because I'm so afraid of making a mistake and sounding stupid. I guess French is really the only thing that makes me feel like I have to be perfect. It's weird.
Anyway, I felt so good about doing that.
THEN!!! Andrew called to tell me that I passed most of my Master's exam!!!! There was only one part that I didn't do so hot on, and that was actually a question that I should have very easily bullshitted (bullshat?? haha) on. Stupid education questions. hoohoo. I totally passed those dumb French literature questions and was even given a compliment on my topic for the comparison (OMG, thank you BF!!!!) although each professor did leave their constructive criticism. SO there's only one questions i'll have to return to re-do in December. It should be fairly easy. I just didn't thoroughly study the topic, that's all.
hooway!
- Mood:
happy
Please?!@
:-x
- Mood:
scared
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Put an asterisk next to the books you'd rather shove hot pokers in your eyes than read
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (I've read the whole series)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck * Sorry - this book is awful.
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (This is waiting to be devoured this summer!)
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert **** I fucking hate this book. >:(
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (the movie freaked me out...)
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (<--- Most AMAZING book ever written. EVER.)
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (I read part of this... his crap is too darn long. and most of it sucks)
Woo. 32. Can you tell I really like to read? There are quite a few on here that I really need to get my hands on to read. Maybe when we FINALLY settle down - near a library I hope! :)
*In other news, I took the first part of my Master's exam today. Fairly certain that I bombed one of the three questions. Seriously, there is only so much theory about second language acquisition that I can memorize. Oops, I mean WANT to memorize. I can't wait until this is over. Thursday is the second part - that is all French and there is most definitely an EXPLICATION DE FUCKING TEXTE. The bane of my existance. What the hell do we need to do these for, anyway? How is THIS going to help me teach middle school French. What? You don't know? Exactly.
Anyway - enough of this.
*Tomorrow is my last day of curriculum development with my favorite colleagues. We just sit around like silly girls and play each other's games on the internet. :) Sweet way to earn $20/hr in the summer, eh?
*No one got me anything for my birthday (Not even Andrew, but I'll forgive him because he's running out of money trying to fix the trailer) so I bought myself an iPod. This is the second radass electronic thing I've gifted to myself this year. (DS and now this) I'm sick of watching the stupid television at the gym and wanted something that I actually enjoyed. (**Not that I really expect or need anything for my birthday, you know! And I think it's lame how people can't remember, but suddenly do when it pops up on their facebook/myspace homepage**)
*wight. my wrist hurts from writing for nearly 4 hours straight this morning. barf. I have to do this all again on Thursday. ick
- Mood:
bitchy
Hello everyone! My boyfriend found this article in the opinion section of a local newspaper. I tried to scan the actual article in, but for some reason my scanner and software decided not to work, so you'll have to trust me when I say that this is VERBATIM from the letter...
"Homework has gotten out of hand for students
To the Editor:
Homework is getting out of hand. I protest, because it's not fair. Kids spend most of their lives doing school work or homework.
The law says not to have a backpack heavier than one to two pounds. Kids have friends, and plan to get an education and a life, but homework isn't part of this plan. Parents may want something, but kids can't do it because they're doing homework.
A.A.
From a local Middle School"
Uhh.... I don't get it.
I tried to get the online version of this, but was unable to find it. However, while googling this young lady's name, I discovered that she is on the HONOR ROLL at her school.
This makes me wonder if the "Editor" to whom the letter was addressed was just trying to have a little laugh by publishing this, or maybe they hadn't gotten any other letters and needed to fill the space. Whatever your theory, it is painfully obvious that we are definitely needed...
- Mood:
duh.
Provided I pass all of the exams in July, I will have a Master's Degree in Second Language Education with a Concentration in French. (yes, that is the whole title. be jealous. I know you want to.)
I am not going to celebrate by taking a hot bath with some fancy LUSH bath products - flosty gritter bubble bar? think pink bath bomb? no... definitely the Comforter... yes. the comforter...
yum.
(thanks BF for making me such a Lushie... :-* )
- Mood: accomplished
I had had a posture screening at our wellness day at school and was recommended to make an appointment for further evaluation. I was promised that the visit would be entirely free of charge just so I could see how I was doing.
I was bombarded at first with questions about my medication habits, which are erratic. I forget to take pills, so I am never really "on meds". I told him that the only meds I was really prescribed are for my allergies. Then he asked if I would rather prevent a forest fire, or put one out. Taking the seemingly easy answer, I said "prevent them" to which he responded, "then why be in the meds at all? That's not prevention". Then we did a series of neat "state-of-the-art" scans of my spine which involved taking the temperature along my spinal column, checking the muscle tone around my spine, and checking my range of motion.
The scan that I found to be most interesting was the temperature scan. I had a few "hot spots" - C1, C6, C7, and L5 vertebrae. The "C" spots are connected to my nose, throat, ears, and sinuses, the "L" spot is connected to my bladder and reproductive organs.
I have wicked allergies and my period right now. That scan showed where I was having issues, and hopefully this doctor can tell me how to fix it. Better without drugs, I say... especially since I always forget them!
I have to have an x-ray sometime this week before my next appointment to show the position of the spine and make sure that it is in its proper positioning in my body. Then we go from there.
My script for the x-ray says that my syptoms are "immune system/allergies" and the diagnosis is "subluxation complex". Subluxation was a neat-o word I learned.
I can't wait to see how I can be fixed. I think it will be cool... I never knew that chiropractors did alternative treatments like this. I thought they just straightened you would when you got all bent out of shape.
Cool. I'll let you know about how this is going after I see him a few times... and insurance will generally cover up to 80%! Wooo!
- Mood: hopeful
Saint Exupery's 'The Little Prince' Quiz.
Another one!
Why do I have to wait so long?!
pensive2. Elementary School Teacher
3. Special Education Teacher
4. Teacher Assistant
5. Professor
6. Early Childhood Educator
7. Occupational Therapist
8. Foreign Language Instructor
9. ESL Teacher
10. Speech-Language Pathologist
( etc. )
Wow. I guess I made the right decision, huh? ha.
- Mood: impressed
Today is the first day of my second to last class of my Graduate career! There are a few things that I need to accomplish today before I go to class.
1- take back this ice cream I got last night. It is so horrible and has this weird funky taste to it. I have to do that BEFORE I go to campus so that it won't melt... duh.
2 - buy a parking permit. Luckily for me, it's only $15 for a whole year because my classes start after 4. Woo. The past two times I've gone to get the sticker, I couldn't find the campus police station because it kept moving around. I wish I could just order the damn thing online. geez.
My eye won't stop twitching. It's the bottom lid on the left side... It has recently slowed down, but it's still irritating. I was told that it could be caused by too much stress (not likely - I've been VERY bored this summer) or too much caffeine, which I also think unlikely because I have one cup of coffee a day and the soda I drink is the Wegmans peach wedge stuff which is caffeine free. Strange.
Last night I finally bought the eyeliner of my dreams. It's a cream liner and it comes in a little pot with a little brush. I gave it the ultimate test last night by applying it while we made cookies (at 9:30) and then... going to bed. I know, it's bad to sleep with eye makeup on, but I had to know!! It hasn't BUDGED! It's thick and dark like a liquid liner, but doesn't flake off. I love it! (HIP Color Truth cream eyeliner by L'Oreal, you will not be dissapointed!!) It comes in many colors like electric blue, purple, teal, brown and black. It is a tad expensive, but I am willing to pay for quality. Yay!
Ooook, I should probably get going and do something today. HA! I probably won't do anything until 2:30... heh heh heh
Ugh. I don't know if it's because it is Friday the 13th or because I was doing dishes (I NEVER do dishes), but I just broke my Kanterbrau glass that I stole from a bar in Rennes. This is very heartbreaking because this glass survived a drunken walk home from downtown, an international flight and four or five moves - all of which should have been very traumatizing for a pretty little half-pint glass. It was so strong! So brave!
And then today... as I was trying to wash it... The stupid scrub brush was just too fat for it and my poor, beautiful glass broke into what I think could be 4-5 pieces. I can't tell since I can only find three. I think some fell on the floor next to the sink, but I don't see them :/
I don't want to finish the dishes because most of our glasses are glass. I will break more.
(Wasn't there a saying that says if you don't want to do dishes anymore, just break a few? I would like to implement that now, if possible. But I didn't break this one on purpose! It was my FAVORITE GLASS!!!!!!)
- Location:la maison roulante
- Mood:
crushed - Music:Billy Joel - Got to Begin Again... (how fitting...)
I am now 25 years old. I have never been happier about a birthday and this one was by far the BEST one I've had. Kristen and Sarah came out to play with me and Andrew. First we went to Cicero to Big Don's Wild River to play mini-golf and do this really big maze thing. I don't know how many 25 year olds have a mini-golfing birthday party, but more people should do it! The three of us girls totally beat Andrew at the maze. hehe. We were even trying to help him get out from the lookout place... he still didn't get out for 14 minutes. silly friend!
Then we went to Ithaca to my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE RESTAURANT ON EARTH (well, except for just about any restaurant in France...) Just a Taste in Ithaca on the Commons is a fantastic place to go if you are looking for something interesting and tasty to eat. I only get to go there once a year, on my birthday, because Andrew hates it. He's really quite picky if you think about it. THis year he got out of it because I had two good buddies there. We tried about four things on the menu including QUAIL! So tasty!
After dinner we decided to check out what was open on the Commons. Autumn Leaves happened to be the only store open after our dinnerings adventures but it proved to be the best place for us - especially bookworms like BF! I dragged the girls downstairs to the used record section and naturally went straight for the Billy Joel section. What do I find halfway through the stack? COLD SPRING HARBOR! NO kidding. I seriously did a dance. Then I remembered that I didn't have my wallet and almost cried. Sarah, however stepped in and said "It's your birthday!" So she got me Cold Spring Harbor and The Nylon Curtain. The guy at the register was like "I was wondering when someone was going to snatch this up. (meaning C.S.H) We don't get it in that often and when we do, it goes so quickly. You've just made someone else very sad" Then I told him it was destiny because it was my birthday. As for our collection, we are now only missing Turnstiles and a possibly difficult to find Storm Front and the non-existent on vinyl River of Dreams. Today I put all of them in Chronological order just to satisfy my need to know EGGSactly what we had. (no doubles, yay!)
Oh yes, after the whole "I'm so exciting I could pee my pants in the middle of Ithaca" thing, we came back to my house and ate the birthday cake Andrew had baked and decorated for me (without me having to explicitly tell him to do so!) Surprisingly, that's still around! He hasn't eaten it all yet! ha.
Ok... moving on to Saturday - Sarah and I went on a wine tour around Keuka Lake. It was a goodbye Sarah party. She's leaving for Germany in like, two days... We went to four wineries and only had to pay at one of them! (and it happened to be my least favorite one...) At two of them we tasted at least 10 wines. It was so rad. I loved it. We ate at the restaurant on the lake and we were literaly... on the lake. Like on a dock thingy and it kept moving. People were driving their boats up and docking them, just like one would at a parking. Neat-o!
Today we rode our bikes again despite the threat of a rainstorm which interestingly hasn't arrived yet. I'm going to like this, I think.
I'm glad my classes this semester are Tuesdays and Thursdays and not Mondays. I hate Mondays.
OH! Yes! That brings me to my last thought... Wednesday August First in Montreal - 83 / Taktika concert. You know you want to go! ;)
- Location:la maison roulante
- Mood:
bouncy - Music:Scandanavian Skies - Billy Joel
Woo! Due to an overwhelmingly stressful school year, I kicked into high crafting gear. I did so much craft-related stress relief that there is now way too much of it in my house. Andrew is not saying he's annoyed, but I can see it.
So, since it is summer and my paychecks have stopped until September, I've decided to put my extra crafted items up for sale.
G'head, look at them!
SimplyElegance.etsy.com
Then when you're done looking at them, BUY THEM! :) or tell someone else to buy them for you.
There's not a whole lot up there right now, but I've taken pictures of most of everything. I'll be posting more soon.
whoops. Speaking of crafty things... I should actually be working on my grandparent's anniversary present since their anniversary IS on Friday... the day before the WEDDING. eep.
Andrew and I have been walking like 6 miles a day for the past three days. We found this really neat-o trail off of 38 here in town that apparently goes all the way to Dryden Lake. We haven't walked all the way down there yet. It's too hot right now. And my feet REALLY hurt. And I'm going to have this really weird/wickedly painful sunburn which will look so ridiculous in my strapless dress that had to be taken in one inch on either side of the zipper that I have to wear for the WEDDING. eep.
Classes will be starting next Thursday. And the day after that I turn 25. What do I want for my birthday? Everyone keeps asking me that. I'm not exactly sure. My gramma asked me that and I bought her an outfit for the WEDDING. eep.
As you can probably tell, I'm still not too keen on this whole wedding thing going down. I probably won't be ok with it for a while. But... it's not my choice. whatever.
buy my stuff.
talk to you all at some other point. Hopefully I won't fall off the face of the Earth this summer.
- Location:buy my stuff
- Music:ffuts ym yub
Oh Ye of desk jobs do not have to deal with the 7th grader crawling on the floor under the desks trying to look up a girl's pants. (YES, I said PANTS.) You do not have to stand on your feet for 5 hours a day, you do not have to deal with the extremely loud cafeteria, you do not have to grade 110 ten sentence essays with poor grammar and wonder what in the world you'd been doing for the past two weeks, you do not have state testing for which you are responsible for making 50 8th graders pass. You do not have to deal with the disrespect and rudeness that comes from the youth today. You don't have to deal with the paper airplanes being thrown across the room at other boys, you don't have to deal with the failures, the cast-offs of society, you don't have to deal with not having windows in your classroom, you do not have to deal with huge desks blocking the walkways, you don't have to deal with 30 kids in one period. You don't have to have that "heart to heart" with the 8th grader who is sexually active whose parents don't care enough to give it to her themselves. You do not have to take your work home with you so that you don't have to stay until 8 pm, and for this you are NOT paid overtime. You do not have to worry about grading your tests while juggling your own classwork for graduate school and having to choose between the two. You just don't.
I just want those of you who come home and say that "oh, I'm so exhausted" to try to live through MY day and see how they feel afterwards.
I chose this profession, I love it. I don't normally complain about it because this is what I chose to do.
Just shut up and grow up, people.
- Location:la maison roulante
- Mood: annoyed
(Sorry, World. I just can't stop bragging!)
:)
- Mood:
excited
I am leaving for France in 14 days.
Thend
Love, Me. :)
- Mood: YAY! I get to see BF!!!!!!!
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