Summer: Day One
8:00 I'm out of bed and watching some of Katie Couric's last day.

8:15 I've had breakfast and am swimsuit clad

8:55 I'm sunscreened. I have watched the weather. May need an umbrella this afternoon, but that's ok because I want to go swimming this MORNING.

9:03 I'm at the pool.

9:03:30 The pool is locked.

9:05 Getting the mail, I see an apartment worker lady. I ask about the pool. They are cleaning the pool. She asks another employee.

9:07 Pool gets unlocked. They will be cleaning it, but I can stay and read for about an hour.

9:08 Perfect

9:10 Towel arranged on chair

9:10:20 iPod on

9:10:30 Latest Nora Roberts book open and ready

9:20 Rain starts spitting down. Not much. I can handle this. It's not real rain, it's not real rain, it's not real rain.

9:25 It is real rain, it is real rain, it is real rain.

9:26 Grab ipod, book, towel, water. Go back to apartment.

9:27 Sit on porch. In cushy chair. This is nice. I can do this. Who needs a pool?

9:35 Is that the sunshine?

9:36 It is!

9:42 Back at the pool. Towel arranged, book open, iPod on.

9:45 Reading. This is nice.

10:05 Real rain. Big fat drops of rain. Like the sky is laughing at me.

10:07 Walking back to my apartment, realizing the irony of covering myself with a towel to avoid the rain when I am in a swimsuit that was designed to be wet.

10:15 Screw this. I'll do pilates instead of swim laps, shower, and try again tomorrow. Hmph.
- posted by Alicia @ 10:20 AM |

 
Year One: Check
Top Ten things I will not be saying this summer.

10. Be in your seats when the bell rings.
9. No, you can't go to the restroom.
8. Do you have your ID?
7. Hurry up, the bell is about to ring.
6. Tuck your shirt in.
5. Shh.
4. Too late. Sign the tardy log.
3. Put your ID on.
2. Do you have your pass?
1. Pull your pants up. Your waist is (while demonstrating) here.
- posted by Alicia @ 3:15 PM |

 
Blue Like Jazz
Today during my fourth period's final, I finished Blue Like Jazz. I had started in months ago and then never finished. This time I read the whole thing. It was a great book to read during finals because it is quite random and easy to just pick up and read a chapter. I liked the writer's style and laughed out loud several times. There were some things in the book that I disagreed with, but overall it was thought-provoking and interesting.

The book was about this one guy's spirituality. He talks about how he doesn't like to use the word Christian (even though he is ceratinly a Christian) because that word has a bad connotation. The book is not linear, which makes it slightly hard to follow when he had what thoughts, but that really isn't the point, so I guess it's ok.

Favorite quotes:
In the worship chapter, how it is important to realize there is Something bigger with everything worked out:

At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay.

In the belief chapter:

If you are passionate about something, people will follow you because they think you know something they don't, some clue to the meaning of the universe.

Funny bit in the chapter on Grace:

We were the direct opposite of a frat house; instead of funneling our testosterone into binge drinking and rowdy parties, we were manning up to Jesus, bumping Him chest to chest as it were, like Bible salesman on steroids.

This book was on my summer reading list and the first book for me to complete. Way to go, me!
- posted by Alicia @ 3:57 PM |

 
Veronica Mars
Friday, I get the Season One DVD of Veronica Mars. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I watch Season One of Veronica Mars. And the only thing that I am ashamed about is that I am so not ashamed. Yes, I watched more tv in the past three days than in the past three days, but Veronica Mars is just so fabulous.

I also washed my car, waxed my car, vacuumed my apartment (twice!), cleaned out most of the stuff in the fridge, went to the grocery store, organized my magnetic poetry by part of speech (is there any other way??), saw friends, worked on ripping apart the rolltop portion to my desk, went to the pool, read, went to a baseball game, went to church, ran more errands, and taught a day of school. It was perhaps the most productive weekend ever.

I gave my first two of 6 finals today and after grading them today, I saw how much better students do if you actually give them time, incentive (extra credit) and the correct answers on the exam review. Imagine that.
- posted by Alicia @ 4:22 PM |

 
Pudding Pops
Google pudding pops and you will get this article about the return of the pudding pops (written in 2004). I don't remember seeing those puddding pops on the shelves so I am doubtful that they made a national release. But looking at the shape of the new pudding pops reminded me of what I like best about the old ones. They were thinner and fatter. Probably about three inches wide. My favorite bites (I tended to be a biter, until towards the end when it got mushy and lickable) were the bites at the very bottom. Turn the popsicle upside down and take the two bites at the bottom on either side of the stick. Those were the best two bites. There were usually little icy bits hanging off of the frozen pudding goodness. Yum.

Indeed, no Jell-O Pudding Pop feels complete without the requisite amount of crunchy, odorless ice mold; the addition somehow makes the pops even more glorious. Aiding to form a surrogate "shell" around the soft molded pudding, freezer burn is credited for turning an otherwise "just okay" dessert into something children have been known to battle over with swords, maces and water guns.

Even if the pudding pops are back, (and apparently I can get them at Fiesta), without the same shape, it's not quite the same.
- posted by Alicia @ 10:42 AM |

 
Poetry 5-20
 
- posted by Alicia @ 4:22 PM |

 
Another step into adulthood
In January 2005, when I moved to Austin, I bought a "vacuum" cleaner. It's kinda cute in that I've-got-my-first-apartment kind of way. But when it comes to suckage, it well, didn't. But I hung on to it for almost a year and a half. Even though its not anything more than a dustbuster on a stick. Remove stick, get dustbuster.


A few days ago, I bought a real vacuum.

And got giddy trying it out.

The whole experience can be summed up in a limmerick:

I once bought a Bissell without bags.
Against other vacuums it lags.
But I bought a new Boss
And its really a hoss
Look at the carpet: it zags!
- posted by Alicia @ 5:04 PM |

 
Reading . . .
I'm stuck in Love in the Ruins. The first 70 pages was entertaining and awesome. But it just got sorta blah. Maybe it is my mood change. Oh well. I trudge on.

One of my favorite parts so far was the description of life in the world Dr. Thomas More lives in:

The reason the tang is warm is that the refrigerator doesn't work. Nothing works. All my household motors are silent: airconditioning, vacuum, dishwasher, dryer, automobile. Appliances and automobiles are more splendid than ever, but when they break down no one will fix them. My car broke down at the A & P three weeks ago and nobody would come and fix it so I abandoned it. Paradise is litered with the rusting hulks of splendid Pontiacs, Olds, and Chrystlers that develped vapor locks and dead batteries and were abandoned. Nowadays people buy cars, drive them until they break down, abandon them, and buy another. Most of my friends have switched to Toyotas, which have one moving part.

Dont tell me the U.S.A. went down the drain because of Leftism, Knotheadism, apostasy, pornography, polarization, etcetera, etcetera. All these things may have happened, but what finally tore it was that things stopped working and nobody wanted a repairman (62-63).

Typing that just now made me think of parallels to euthenasia, abandonment of the elderly today. Hmph.

In other news, I went to not my usual half price book store and bought:
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (SUPER BUY! $3.00!)
Angela'sAshes by Frank McCourt (SUPER BUY! $2.00!) and
Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody.

Add those to the LIST.

Also: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005, which looks interesting.
- posted by Alicia @ 9:53 PM |

 
Summer Reading List
Summmer Reading List includes Mrs. Galloway.

Yes, it was AP English, but yes, it was summer reading. I stumbled upon his journal: "Why am I reading about a woman looking at herself in her dresser mirror?" Why indeed is a 17-year-old boy reading Virginia Woolf during the summer?"

This brings back the awful memories of reading To the Lighthouse one summer. The whole summer assignment was that, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, and watching 6 movies: It Happened One Night, Since You Went Away, Norma Rae, and I can't remember what else. I hated To the Lighthouse. Then my teacher appologized the first week of school. She had forgotten what that book was like.

My summer reading list for me and the students is just Great Expectations. It will be interesting doing the summer assignment along with them.
- posted by Alicia @ 1:59 PM |

 
Masks
Last week we made masks. Give kids some paper plates, popsicle sticks, glue, tissue paper, and lots and lots of glitter and feathers and they will come up with some amazing stuff. The masks cover half of my wall that sits opposite my desk and I just look at the colorful chaos and am immediately happy.

 
- posted by Alicia @ 7:56 PM |