Saturday Notes

I got up around 8.30 this morning, but only because I was unable to continue ignoring the noise of leafblowers outside. Grr. I hate early morning loud noises.

I watched the rest of the Felicity episodes, because I love the show and am too lazy to get right to work on my first day off. After that, I dutifully began organizing my short week's worth of lesson plans.

Guess what? By next week I need to come up with a plan for the bulletin board. Again, already. Yeesh, how time does fly. I am already so bored with the fucking four square. I wonder if putting poems would be okay. I better check next week with the AP to find out exactly what my parameters are.

This morning I ended up finding a blog that has my site in the links section! My mouth hung open, in utter surprise. I felt so loved. Two perfect strangers have read my blog. That blogger is a Canadian teacher, and had a bunch of teacher blogs linked. I visited some of them, and they are awesome. Even found one for another NYC Teaching Fellow, though she sounds more intelligent and more fed up than I. But it's so relieving to read about the same frustrations that I experience, from teachers all over the place, at different grade levels and experience levels.

I went out for some errands. I began with my cell phone; I've been an AT&T customer for three years and now that Cingular has taken over, I want to get a better service plan. To do that I need a new phone. I still use my Nokia from three years ago, with the dark pink cover. One night in 2002 at a Bradford, NH a pizza place, I dropped my phone onto the concrete steps and a friend accidentally stepped on it. It still bears the scars of that night. I love that, and I love the unusual color, and I'm very accustomed to the way my phone works. I'm not excited about getting a new, silver-colored, flip-open phone, one that looks like all the other phones out there. My old one sticks out like a sore, pink thumb. The new one I'm getting will blend in. Because I am keeping my out-of-state phone number (because I've had it for three years, and because my family and friends can call me locally), I couldn't do the changeover thing in the store. The new phone will arrive next week. That will be fun to play with, I suppose.

Next I went to the library and got a few fun books to read, plus a French film called "Happenstance." Stopped in a dollar store, Staples, and Duane Reade. Walked home in the drizzle. It's already dark. Crazy winter.

Oh man am I excited for this short week. I hope the kids aren't insane.

Ooh! Did I mention the great news that I learned yesterday? I mean other than the fact that "Trouble" is in the process of transferring out of Class A? (Classmates cheered, hurrahed, and hallelujahed at his announcement of that after a return from the dean; privately, so did I.) He left last night for a vacation and will be gone all next week. Hurrah! It's like a birthday present! So maybe next week won't be so bad, or at least not as bad, in Class A.

I think I will have a baked potato for dinner. And some pepper jack cheese. Last night I had some (canned) green beans in butter.

I'm pretty sure I'm losing weight. Strange because I eat a lot of junk. But not that strange because I don't eat very much during the day, if at all. Sometimes I eat quite a lot in the late afternoon/evening, and on weekends. But I drink water and pure juice, and maybe the ten-minute walk to and from the subway helps too. But it's frustrating because all my pants ride low. The two most recent trouser purchases were especially because all my others are too big. One of the pairs was nice and comfortably snug when I bought them, and now are a bit loose. Gah! I want to have clothes that actually fit!