Where did the time go?!
I keep remembering that it's JULY now, for crying out loud, and just feeling like that's insane. I guess since I don't have school as a frame of time or day reference, everything is just blurring together.
Speaking of school, since I wrote that long rambling post about teaching dreams, I haven't had any. Maybe I just needed to get it all out of my head in some other medium?
I baked a cake this weekend, and made buttercream frosting.
I'm currently reading my 65th book of the year.
It is really hot outside. I am so, so grateful to have a working air-conditioner.
This week I'm starting a new part-time gig as a baby photographer. Not so much for the pay, but for the experience. Today I did a training thing and I start for real on Friday.
Showing posts with label random. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
blasted from the past
Last week, I spent some time going through my three boxes of film photos, just to see what's there and find some fun ones to scan. (See, I'm in the middle of two other projects, so I needed to find another one. :D)
I saw all kinds of little things I'd forgotten about. Like the time my little brother and I were playing around and he put his big stuffed ninja turtle in his shirt so that it looked like his own legs were green and furry. Or this cool game I had that was sort of like aimed pinball and you made designs. In shots of my old bedroom I was horrified at how messy I was (but...not too surprised), and then noticed the old plastic Rainbow Brite and Care Bears bowls we had. I snapped shots showing the change from my kid room walls (cute kittens and puppies) to teenage walls (my favorite baseball stars, inspirational quotes). One of my favorite shots of my dad, brother, best friend and me, at our beach.
Pictures from my high school graduation with my braces and semi-friends. Pictures from my college graduation with my younger siblings, who have now graduated from high school and college themselves. My kid cousins, who are now successful grown-ups, who I got to know better for a minute while in Seattle earlier this year. A roll of photos taken from my car as I drove down the Oregon and California coast.
Then the next day, I accidentally clicked on a former friend's folder in my email. I ended up reading through all of our exchanges--over four years' worth. This is the friend who dropped me suddenly my second year in NYC. In the pictures I'd gone through, there were a ton of the two of us. We'd sit in my car and laugh about who knows what, and take stupid photos of ourselves. (This is of course from the 35mm days, so most of them are blurry and half our faces are cut off. In a lot of them we look alike, which we always joked about. Something about having glasses and dark hair.) We'd had a lot of fun for a few years and the emails proved that we were actually friends. I still kind of want to know what on earth happened. But I won't.
(Do you keep old correspondence? I have a hard time getting rid of actual things, so it's not surprising that I semi-hoard electronic things. It's an amazing way to get a real glimpse of past iterations of life. Do you count a difference between actual letters and emails?)
Anyway, the first part of that week left me really disoriented for a day or so--the past was swirling around my head and it came back to life briefly.
I wonder where I'll be ten years from now, looking back on this year--my first year of *not* teaching, our first year of marriage. What kinds of progress or change will I have made that I look back on my 31 year old self and shake my head and say, wow, how little she knew! What memories will I have? What moments, big and little, will stick out?
I saw all kinds of little things I'd forgotten about. Like the time my little brother and I were playing around and he put his big stuffed ninja turtle in his shirt so that it looked like his own legs were green and furry. Or this cool game I had that was sort of like aimed pinball and you made designs. In shots of my old bedroom I was horrified at how messy I was (but...not too surprised), and then noticed the old plastic Rainbow Brite and Care Bears bowls we had. I snapped shots showing the change from my kid room walls (cute kittens and puppies) to teenage walls (my favorite baseball stars, inspirational quotes). One of my favorite shots of my dad, brother, best friend and me, at our beach.
Pictures from my high school graduation with my braces and semi-friends. Pictures from my college graduation with my younger siblings, who have now graduated from high school and college themselves. My kid cousins, who are now successful grown-ups, who I got to know better for a minute while in Seattle earlier this year. A roll of photos taken from my car as I drove down the Oregon and California coast.
Then the next day, I accidentally clicked on a former friend's folder in my email. I ended up reading through all of our exchanges--over four years' worth. This is the friend who dropped me suddenly my second year in NYC. In the pictures I'd gone through, there were a ton of the two of us. We'd sit in my car and laugh about who knows what, and take stupid photos of ourselves. (This is of course from the 35mm days, so most of them are blurry and half our faces are cut off. In a lot of them we look alike, which we always joked about. Something about having glasses and dark hair.) We'd had a lot of fun for a few years and the emails proved that we were actually friends. I still kind of want to know what on earth happened. But I won't.
(Do you keep old correspondence? I have a hard time getting rid of actual things, so it's not surprising that I semi-hoard electronic things. It's an amazing way to get a real glimpse of past iterations of life. Do you count a difference between actual letters and emails?)
Anyway, the first part of that week left me really disoriented for a day or so--the past was swirling around my head and it came back to life briefly.
I wonder where I'll be ten years from now, looking back on this year--my first year of *not* teaching, our first year of marriage. What kinds of progress or change will I have made that I look back on my 31 year old self and shake my head and say, wow, how little she knew! What memories will I have? What moments, big and little, will stick out?
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
June!
Just the word June conjures up warm days, short sleeves, relaxed classrooms, countdowns and vacation plans.
This is only my second June that won't see me in one of those relaxed classrooms. Last June I worked it so that I never taught a full week, because I arranged field trips and a field day, in addition to a planning day, plus a weekend away. The total crazy boy student, along with two troublesome girl students, insisted on being switched to the other class. One of my lowest students just didn't show up for the last three weeks of school. So my group was small and behaved fairly well. We kept the lights off to stay as cool as we could. All that made it a pretty good month. :)
This June things are pretty calm for me. I'm still working with that same company, working with teachers and schools. My hours are flexible and this week seems to be a quiet one. I like having flexibility. Since I'm not making much money, I haven't been very social, to avoid spending too much. It's been a quiet year in many ways.
Since that all feels still a bit temporary, it's difficult to look ahead. We don't really have vacation plans, so we'll have to make our own fun around the city. Like last night, we went into town for a quick dinner and then Manhattanhenge.
I hope your June is off to a happy start, not least because it's a short week!
This is only my second June that won't see me in one of those relaxed classrooms. Last June I worked it so that I never taught a full week, because I arranged field trips and a field day, in addition to a planning day, plus a weekend away. The total crazy boy student, along with two troublesome girl students, insisted on being switched to the other class. One of my lowest students just didn't show up for the last three weeks of school. So my group was small and behaved fairly well. We kept the lights off to stay as cool as we could. All that made it a pretty good month. :)
This June things are pretty calm for me. I'm still working with that same company, working with teachers and schools. My hours are flexible and this week seems to be a quiet one. I like having flexibility. Since I'm not making much money, I haven't been very social, to avoid spending too much. It's been a quiet year in many ways.
Since that all feels still a bit temporary, it's difficult to look ahead. We don't really have vacation plans, so we'll have to make our own fun around the city. Like last night, we went into town for a quick dinner and then Manhattanhenge.
I hope your June is off to a happy start, not least because it's a short week!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Readin'!!!
Happy Memorial Day Weekend!! Are you excited for the extra day to relax/sleep in/have fun/travel/etc? Woo!
I've been reading a lot, currently on my 50th for the year! It's funny; I was reading nothing but YA for a few months. So in April I told myself I should read at least one 'grown-up' book per month. And then I read nothing *but* grown-up books for a solid month!
One that I loved was The Eyre Affair, a fun, alternate-reality filled with wordplay, and none of the fuss of dystopia or vampire shit. Thursday Next (what a freaking awesome name!) is featured in a bunch more books; I've requested them from my neighborhood library!
One that I didn't love was 1984. I read half of it years ago and found it fascinating. I bought it later and it's been on my shelf ever since. My book club decided to read that (and Brave New World, which I read in 2007 while in Amsterdam) this month, so I picked it up and read the whole thing. Blaaaaahhhh I was bored silly for the first half (and a little alarmed at the misogyny at the beginning!). Then things finally picked up. It got super boring for about fifteen straight pages and then a little more interesting at the end. Overall, I was kind of underwhelmed. Is that wrong? I don't know, I'm just kind of over that genre. Everyone and their mom is publishing dystopian fiction lately and UGH. Anyway, I wrote a haiku to summarize the book!
Pessimist author
The man always keeps us down
There is never hope
Gosh, that's depressing, sorry! :)
Here's a happy for you though: check out these fun bookshelves (via Neatorama)!
My favorite is this one:
Makes sense, seeing as how I seem to keep acquiring books (having friends in publishing is bad news for one's bookshelves!) and running out of room!
Sidebar: Recently I followed a link to a blog called Unclutterer, which has me inspired to start eyeing things that are extra and unneeded. Actually, just this afternoon I did another sweep of my shelves and cleared out almost two feet of books that will go on the street/to the laundry room bookswap shelf. So my imaginary twin bookshelf would be going in, not out. :)
Finally, (as seen again on Neatorama) Amazon published an "official" list of the most well-read cities in the US, based on their sales (totally objective!).
Anyway, hope you get some good reading in on this long weekend!
I've been reading a lot, currently on my 50th for the year! It's funny; I was reading nothing but YA for a few months. So in April I told myself I should read at least one 'grown-up' book per month. And then I read nothing *but* grown-up books for a solid month!
One that I loved was The Eyre Affair, a fun, alternate-reality filled with wordplay, and none of the fuss of dystopia or vampire shit. Thursday Next (what a freaking awesome name!) is featured in a bunch more books; I've requested them from my neighborhood library!
One that I didn't love was 1984. I read half of it years ago and found it fascinating. I bought it later and it's been on my shelf ever since. My book club decided to read that (and Brave New World, which I read in 2007 while in Amsterdam) this month, so I picked it up and read the whole thing. Blaaaaahhhh I was bored silly for the first half (and a little alarmed at the misogyny at the beginning!). Then things finally picked up. It got super boring for about fifteen straight pages and then a little more interesting at the end. Overall, I was kind of underwhelmed. Is that wrong? I don't know, I'm just kind of over that genre. Everyone and their mom is publishing dystopian fiction lately and UGH. Anyway, I wrote a haiku to summarize the book!
Pessimist author
The man always keeps us down
There is never hope
Gosh, that's depressing, sorry! :)
Here's a happy for you though: check out these fun bookshelves (via Neatorama)!
My favorite is this one:
Makes sense, seeing as how I seem to keep acquiring books (having friends in publishing is bad news for one's bookshelves!) and running out of room!
Sidebar: Recently I followed a link to a blog called Unclutterer, which has me inspired to start eyeing things that are extra and unneeded. Actually, just this afternoon I did another sweep of my shelves and cleared out almost two feet of books that will go on the street/to the laundry room bookswap shelf. So my imaginary twin bookshelf would be going in, not out. :)
Finally, (as seen again on Neatorama) Amazon published an "official" list of the most well-read cities in the US, based on their sales (totally objective!).
- Cambridge, Mass.
- Alexandria, Va.
- Berkeley, Calif.
- Ann Arbor, Mich.
- Boulder, Colo.
- Miami
- Salt Lake City
- Gainesville, Fla.
- Seattle
- Arlington, Va.
- Knoxville, Tenn.
- Orlando, Fla.
- Pittsburgh
- Washington, D.C.
- Bellevue, Wash.
- Columbia, S.C.
- St. Louis, Mo.
- Cincinnati
- Portland, Ore.
- Atlanta
Anyway, hope you get some good reading in on this long weekend!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)