Tag: school

Chocoholic?

I remember distinctly how Nicholas H—– from elementary and middle school didn’t like chocolate.

We were all so disbelieving about it, it is kind of funny – we had never heard of someone not liking chocolate, let alone known someone… we just couldn’t understand how someone wouldn’t just love chocolate.

The irony still tickles my belly these days, whenever I have to mention nowadays to someone that I really don’t like chocolate, and, quite carefully, I strive not to offend them in communicating this fact.

Somehow, I’m a chocolate convert in reverse, I guess – I used to be all about it, and now I kind of don’t care for it, and I even dislike it at times.

Chocolate malt or smoothie?… hand it over to me, please – yumm!

Hot chocolate and chocolate milk (usually almond milk), too…

But I regularly pass on all, and I pretty much don’t like chocolate in any other form, almost ever.

And I have no idea how I got this way…, because I used to be all about chocolate.

Maybe I just never loved it for myself, but appreciated and attached to it, because everyone else had somehow informed me that that was the way to treat chocolate.

I always loved Butterfinger and Reese’s, but both of those were for the fact that something else was the main focus – the chocolate was secondary, only a coating…. I even made sure I finished the peanut butter cups on the center, not the outside edges of only chocolate.

So, perhaps I never really was a fan of chocolate, but just accepted what I understood to be desirable…

Interesting… 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Time to get up

The struggles of not being an early-morning person… Tomorrow, I don’t have to be in until around 10am…

If I go in at the regular time (i.e. leaving home right at 7am), I can accomplish a lot of my writing and photo stuff before classes.

If I go in for 10, I won’t have time to accomplish anything except teaching and tutoring and regular working stuff – I’m booked through the evening.

But I would get to sleep in…., which is awesome, especially since we’re hoping to do or first workout class tomorrow night.

…However, I might get stress-y about the potential of showing up late for some reason, if I wait for 10…

So, I’m guessing I will schedule myself for the regular wake-up and get ready times, but just take my time doing them, as I find necessary… if I show up half an hour later than usual, due to increased traffic on the roads, that’s okay – I’ll still have enough time at that point to do my personal work before I have a class.

Good plan.

Yep.

…

Yeah, I’m definitely planning to leave at the same time as usual. 😛

Haha… I’m quite glad I can laugh at myself with this; laughter is good medicine. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Girl Rising

Tonight, I finally watched a film recommended to me by a couple of high school senior girls, called “Girl Rising“.

Before it even was finished, I found myself rather wanting to find a way to get myself funded to go over somewhere where teachers are needed, and to teach children (girls especially) everything I possibly can.

And I am now somewhat worried that I might actually end up doing something radical… like just that… or even finding a way to find a girls boarding school here somewhere, to bring girls who otherwise can’t afford anything, let alone education, and that will be this school I have considered and discussed so much in recent years, the one I have though about founding…

That seems even more absurd than my just going somewhere… somehow…

P.S. I recommend the film.

Post-a-day 2019

Notes on today

My schedule for school and writing and photos has gone well so far, and I look forward to continuing with it tomorrow (though my tired eyes aren’t thrilled at the moment at the prospect of reading a whole bunch tomorrow for the schoolwork that is on deck).

I went to the other two CrossFit places that were on the list my old coworker gave me to check out near me… I am nervous, but I trust that everything will work out perfectly.

I have them ranked (and easily so) in order of my preference, with one being high above the others.

However, where I go will depend strongly on what the pricing will end up being at my number one selection… I am at a financial point that I really need to take the cheapest offer, especially if it is a $50 or $70 difference per month in price.

Here’s to getting the perfect rate when I go by to meet and talk with the owner tomorrow morning!! (And, of course, to my actually getting up and moving in time to be able to do so before I have to head to school to sub and all that jazz. 😛

Cheers to finding and pursuing our dreams, folks!

Post-a-day 2019

Scheduling life

Okay, I think I have it figured… I’m going to test how it feels for the next day or so, while giving it a go:

My cousin and I were talking the other day about schedules, and how we want to schedule the various tasks we each want to accomplish as though they are classes we must attend on certain days, at certain times.

She is working on fixing up and setting up her new house, so her ‘classes’ would be things like Painting Walls, meeting Tuesdays 10am-2pm, and Office Arrangement and Organization, meeting Wednesdays noon-3pm.

She also has other things, like writing and artwork, on her list, and she wants to find time for them all in her weekly schedule.

For myself, I mostly need help getting myself in the groove of working on a few specific areas of my life.

So, my tentative schedule is as follows:

Tuesday/Thursday/Friday School Work

Monday/Wednesday Writing

Monday/Wednesday/Saturday/Sunday Photos

I only have entire days listed, because I have to keep in account the fact that I sometimes have to substitute teach, and I also tutor…., so I can’t make set times, only to change them every other day – I know myself, and the whole schedule would fall to pieces, if I kept having to change it around.

Therefore, I went with days, so that I know how to manage all of my free time, if I am working (for pay), or else at least the few hours it takes to accomplish something good with the task for the day, if I don’t have to sub or tutor.

For the photos, they are secondary on Monday and Wednesday, but I knew they still needed to be during the week somehow – I gave them the weekends as secondary days, so that they still have their own days, and they can be the focus of my free time on the weekends, especially if I didn’t get much done with them during the week.

Anyway, that’s my tentative plan that I will test out, starting tomorrow morning (absurdly early, since I’m subbing).

And I have to come up with my exercise plan by this Friday night, so my friend in D.C. and I can be workout buddies from afar, and both get out of this fitness slump in which we both have found ourselves inwardly wallowing these past many months. 😛

(I’m especially excited about that one.)

Post-a-day 2019

Gullible

Back in high school, there was, as is likely often the case with high schoolers, a phase of everyone telling each other that “‘gullible’ is written on the ceiling.”

In the middle of that phase of adolescence, I was hanging out one day with a couple or few friends, just outside the school theatre.

Outside the entry doors to the theatre, the building’s roof continues to the sides, creating a large concrete-based overhang/roof over the walkway immediately surrounding the theatre.

We were hanging out in this area, stage left of the entry doors.

Being my usual self, I was browsing my surroundings, including the ceiling above me.

Curiosity struck me, when I came across something unique.

“What does ‘gullible’ mean?” I asked those with me.

They paused to look at me and scoff, or something of the sort.

Having received no useful answer, I explained the reason for my question.

Pointing at the ceiling, I told them, “It’s written up there, on the ceiling.”

The irony of the event and my statement finally struck me, when I learned the definition of the word later on, but I was met with little interest in looking to where I was pointing at the time – no one trusted or believed me.

I eventually – not sure if it was almost immediately or weeks or months later – started telling people about this incident, always chuckling at the whole affair, and was usually met with disbelief and distrust – only on occasion did someone believe me and share in the hilarity of the story and situation with me.

I worked usually in vain to explain how someone could go find the very word himself or herself, always wondering if it even was still there.

Today, more than a decade later, I went back to that same area, and dropped my head back to scan the ceiling…

Over to the side, just as I remembered it, in its pencil-lead-looking ink and terrible handwriting that was likely snuck up there in a huge hurry while teachers were out of sight, was this:

(And a slightly zoomed-in version:)

Snazzy, huh? ;P

Post-a-day 2019

It’s all in the attitude

Do you ever find yourself walking through a store, looking at all the items for sale around you, and feeling utterly sick at the thought of it all?

Walking through a Marshalls today with my aunt and cousin, on a trip my cousin had been wanting for a while for some household things, I had this experience as I walked to the bathroom, just before leaving.

I thought of my best friend, and how she had lived in The Gambia…. the way things are there…., and I thought of how things are in so many similar places, where air conditioning and mattresses and safe showering and clean water are not a given but a rarity and a practically-unachievable luxury… and I felt repulsed by the few items – some foods and soaps and a bottle cleaner for my water bottles and tea bottles – I myself had pulled out, let alone the overwhelming sense of the thousands of items surrounding me that even I found entirely unnecessary and wasteful…

And I felt terrible…

And then I looked into it further than merely being upset…

And I saw that this is the life and the part of the world and the lifestyle in which I have been placed and in which I have opted to remain… there is much I dislike about it all, and yet there is more than enough to keep me in it, wanting to be part of it… to some degree, anyway…

And it reminded me of what I would tell my students whenever they complained about school rules or homework from other teachers or the administration, that this is the school and the society in which they are choosing to participate, and so they can follow the rules and either get over it or work toward change, or they can go somewhere else to have different rules… as long as they select to be at this school, though, they are agreeing to follow this school’s rules.

And so my Marshalls visit was a lot like that for me – I want to be in this culture, and so I have to accept the ‘rules’ this culture follows… I can work toward change, as I already do, and I can work for myself to buy and to use and to produce what I feel is appropriate, as I also already do, and I can encourage and empower others to do the same, all while accepting that this is the way things currently are here, whether I like them or not.

And I totally wanted to go check the dumpster, instead of walking the inside of the store, in hopes of preventing the sad waste that likely was back there… unfortunately, circumstances did not quite allow for such a move today.

So it goes… an attitude of gratitude is a good way to start, and then we can make some real progress. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Barbie therapy

Sometimes, a Barbie musical is just the way to go.

When I lived and studied in Wien (Vienna, Austria), I hit a point of lonesome depression as the Fall weather of constant overcast skies and regular rain took its place over the city.

When talking one night with my best friend, she and her then-boyfriend, now-husband, declares that my tasks for the rest of the evening were to go for a walk outside (bundled up, of course), and then to watch a Barbie musical movie.

That way, I got outside air and some physical movement in, plus I got a really good, feel-good story and music.

Turns out, their prescription was perfect, and it still is useful to this day – whenever I’m feeling lonesome and/or down, a walk and a Barbie musical movie fill me with fresh air and cozy comfort.

And even tonight, when I wasn’t particularly down, but just wanted some love, watching Barbie’s “Princess and the Pauper” gave me those loving snuggles I was craving.

Plus, it always feels good to have the bad guy in a story end up on bottom and the good guys to end up on top – Barbie movies are always sure of having that happen!

Also, the bloopers at the end are tops – an even better ending than the wonderful happy ending the film already has. 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Home, I guess

Three and a half weeks ago, I moved the last of my belongings into my new housing location… tonight, I am spending my first official night here.

‘Why?’ you ask.

Because first, there was suddenly no hot water (first two weeks); then, it was fixed, but I was in the middle of my final papers and didn’t want to mess with moving myself during that (slash to a place with no internet during that) (one week); and then, I just got nervous about staying here, because it had been so long of not being here and of being in a place where I was emotionally comfortable (at my mom’s, spending lots of time with her) (this past weekend).

What’s funnier, is that I was supposed to move in here another three weeks before I did, but it was pushed back, due to a huge crack in the ceiling from the foundation repairs over the summer.

So really, it’s taken 47 days to move from one place to another, only a few neighborhoods over. 😛

Totally nuts, huh?

And then tonight, while showering, I find that the hot and cold are switched on the shower – I was genuinely concerned at first, since no hot water was arriving, but it worked out (phew!) – and then, when I gently turn the shower-head so that it isn’t pointing really far to the side, water starts shooting everywhere.

I quickly turned the water back to the tub faucet, and worked to remedy the sudden spewing situation on the shower-head, by tightening it back into place… only to find the shower-head suddenly in my hand – apparently it was waiting to break off.

I actually laughed at the absurdity of it, it was kind of like the straw that broke the camel’s bag of laughter – I was in no way stressed, but merely finding the total humor of it all.

It was a clean break, and so I set the shower-head on the floor and turned the water back to the shower function, using just the metal tubing to which the actual sprayer of the shower-head had been attached… it isn’t as efficient, for my shower or the planet, but it works, and it’ll do for now.

Oh, the delights of life… all of this on top of the fact that I’m home super late tonight, but have to be up early tomorrow, and I started feeling the symptoms of my body fighting infection this afternoon (super sore muscles in my upper back and all the way around of my neck).

God, thank you for these blessings I have received – please, help me to be happy, healthy, holy through them all.

Post-a-day 2018

Nerding into the finish line

Tonight was great.

I turned in the hard copy of my paper (digital copy was earlier today – I just couldn’t get to campus until after work), and then somewhat spontaneously went to dinner with a friend from college (finally, it worked out for both of us).

Dinner was great.

The restaurant we picked, which the friend had picked at random from the two options I gave, was shut down, and so we went to the other option, and the pumpkin red curry special was just what I’d needed and wanted on this cold and windy night.

I ran into an old friend from dance while having dinner, and that was fun.

The friend and I having dinner together talked a lot about boats, because he works with boats and art, and then we finished a crossword puzzle.

It was a nerdy affair, and I definitely loved it – a rather perfect end to the semester for me, really.

Post-a-day 2018