there comes a time when all your outlets are blocked.

safe above ground.

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:13:50 GMT

we don't have internet until thursday so i'm sitting in a coffeeshop, air-conditioned, drinking iced cocoa. i'm absolutely, completely in love with this place, and i'm only half-scared to admit that.

things that are lovely here:
- our GIGANTIC beautiful apartment, wood floors, huge windows, gas stove, so many cabinets and closets, amazing hotel room shower, new mattress
- enchanting farmer's market by the river
- sunset
- less than 20 minute walk from pizza, coffee, italian food, ice cream stand, grocery, bead store!, breakfast places, bookstore, library, park, etc. etc. etc....
- quiet quiet neighborhood
- huge huge blue sky

things that are not lovely:
- being unemployed
- highs above 90 all week

so, who's coming to visit me first?

Mon, 25 May 2009 16:54:34 GMT

i don't post here anymore, but it seems like this morning would be a good one.

we're having a renaissance of sorts, in all the good ways. we drove out to missoula this weekend to look at apartments, and i think i fell in love -- with both the city and its surroundings, with the built-in glass door cabinets in the hardwood floor living room, with its huge windows and more storage space than we'll know what to do with, its TWO (2!) bedrooms so we can spread out and work, its proximity to everything which is not up- or down-hill from anything. just cross a river. proximity includes a farmer's market, a super sweet ice cream stand, and this.

coming back here i feel so much better, impatient to move but so much more relaxed and in control and hopeful. i think i (we) get into routines here that we need to break out of. all those times i said i would start reading more, running, walking, planting things, sewing and creating, cleaning, cooking more -- i think i mean it this time. i think a new place will mean a new start for me (us). i even want to write. ...but i need to find a job first.

but, the mountains, the river. the wildlife!

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:41:54 GMT

all weekend i was like, auuuggghhhh, this paper is so incredibly boring to write, ahhhhhh, click tv on, stalk friends on the internet, crunch crunch lots of cookys and jelly beans. well, the jelly beans didn't crunch.

so today i was like, okay, need to get work done, as it's due tomorrow and i still have two finals to study for and exams to grade.

so i came to the library and i've been working for two hours. i've managed to get three of the four parts done, which is much better than where i was yesterday -- had basically started all the sections and couldn't get going on any of them. but this is seriously, literally, the most boring paper i've ever had to write, and i want to poke my eyes out with my pencil and i'm so tired of this!

yeah, then i remembered that i could get internet in the library with the wireless and, oh, the library isn't a productive place for me to be either. what now?! i've never procrastinated this badly, on anything, i don't think -- what's happened to me?

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:10:22 GMT

copy this as a comment to this post and fill out the answers, then repost on your own journal.
i'm lame, bored, and i miss you guys.

1) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
A.
2) What was your dream growing up?
A.
3) What talent do you wish you had?
A.
4) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
A.
5) Favorite vegetable?
A.
6) What was the last book you read?
A.
7) What zodiac sign are you?
A.
8) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
A.
9) Worst Habit?
A.
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
A.
11) What is your favorite sport?
A.
12) Do you have a Negative or Optimistic attitude?
A.
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
A.
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
A.
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
A.
16) Do you have any pets?
A.
17) What if i showed up at your house unexpectedly?
A.
18) What was your first impression of me? (hmmm...careful!)
A.
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
A.
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
A.
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
A.
22) What color eyes do you have?
A.
23) Ever been arrested?
A.
24) Bottle or can soda?
A.
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
A.
27) What's your favorite place to hang at?
A.
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
A.
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
A.
30) Do you swear a lot?
A.
31) Biggest pet peeve?
A.
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
A.
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
A.
35) Do you believe in God?
A.
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?
A.
37) Why did you fill this out?
A.

i was lonely today, so...

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:59:59 GMT

it's certainly been a long time since i posted here. i think right now, so close to the end of the most serious quarter of school i've had since slc, i'm missing the community-conference-paper-writing atmosphere we used to have during the last week or two. i went to school today to work in my office because i can't get work done at home (i watch tv) and there was no one around. which is what i wanted, because it was so quiet and nice and i basically had the whole wing to myself, but...i felt alone too. i miss when we used to post our to-do lists on here, and cross things out...i have my facebook status, but it's not quite the same. why? IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT LOOKING AT IT, GO LOOK AT IT.

my big big phono paper is due tuesday at 5, my sanskrit exam is wednesday morning at 830, and my less big syntax paper is due wednesday at 5. then i have to grade my students' exams and turn in their grades. and THEN i'll be done, and can christmas shop, and pack, and go home on monday. hoping for snow.

i'm also sad that i will not be making it to the east coast before the cooky party this year. i don't know if i'll make it down to ny at all, because of my dad's trip etc. we'll see. i haven't actually been invited, really, but i suspect i'd be welcome. truth?

stupidly, it just occurred to me yesterday that the topic i finally picked for my thesis and have done a bunch of work on, might not be a possible topic for me based on area restrictions for my degree. stupid, that i did not think before, that for a romance linguistics degree i might have to write a thesis on romance linguistics. i think it's my slc upbringing.

also, we have pretty red beer and homemade toffee in the fridge, one room of the apartment is pretty well heated, and she's having me teach her french. i love.

you could cry, or die, or just make pies all day.

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:23:24 GMT

i'm posting mostly because i haven't in a while and i have a paper to finish up and a presentation to put together today and tomorrow, ick. the topic is kind of something i'm excited about, i guess, as excited as i can get about second language acquisition, and pretty personalized to what i'm studying here otherwise. i'm writing a proposal to do a study that tests whether or not lessons in historical sound change processes in french at the beginning level can help students process the rules of pronunciation. i.e., if you explain to students why (historically) certain letters are written but not pronounced and explain the processes that caused them to be silent, as opposed to just saying that they're silent and hoping they'll memorize it, will they have a better grasp of the rules? i think i've learned that in this field, even if you don't totally buy into an idea, as long as you stick with it and back it up with evidence, you can write a paper claiming just about anything. not that i think my paper is unfounded; i really like the idea and it's one that has only started to be investigated in sla so it could be a really good thesis topic, but i'm not sure about the probability of the study actually working out the way i want it to. somehow that doesn't matter to anyone. and i think that's why i want to go do something else instead.

i had a dream last night that i was teaching french to another french teacher from school, only he was drunk in class and trying to hit on me. what do you think that means??? maybe it just means there's too much french in my life. tonight is my last class with brody, which i actually will be sad about, as we had a pretty good run and he's improved so much over the summer and we actually get along really well as friends, which is a nice change. i think i just don't have many friends here so in a way, i take what i can get. but it worked out well.

i spent the night before last having dreams about quilt patterns. they were being pieced together and pulled apart and everything was white. i'm planning on spending some time while i'm home (in one week? ack) starting a new quilt, i think we've picked this pattern partially because what i have to work with is a lot of scraps left over from the various sewing, quilting, craft projects of my mother's life and i'd like to make them into something beautiful and not just throw them away or in a dresser drawer somewhere to be forgotten. also, the pattern poster's name is marcia. (though my mother would never in a million years have her own website, even if it was for something like quilt patterns.) i'm planning on bringing the material back here with me to cut out and maybe when it's all ready to be pieced and if i'm still not bored, i'll buy a cheap sewing machine here. i think it will be right to be starting it now -- it will be one year on sunday and her birthday will be soon too. sometimes i don't think about it at all; sometimes she's in every dream i have for a week.

otherwise, not so excited about going home for a week. my dad's just been so strange this past six months, which is to be expected, and i won't argue with him about it, but what i was jokingly calling a mid-life crisis before actually is one now, in really stereotypical ways. he just bought a bright red bmw convertible. (the only good angle i can see to this is that it's almost ten years old, if it was brand-new i think i would pretend it wasn't even there.) anyway, he's going to be working a lot while i'm home for the most part, and my brother will only be home for a day after i get there before he heads back to school, completely not my fault. saving grace will be visiting kerrilee and melissa and ashleigh for a day; sara, i suppose you have to work and philadelphia is far, but if you happen to be on break then and can come up to the city for a day, i'd love to see you too (aug 29). then back here for a couple of weeks before ta orientation, and the ta teaching and learning conference also, for which i got nominated by my boss to be a workshop presenter this year (and you get paid...not much, but probably between $80-120, and it will look good on my resume).

miraculously i've been reading this month; i just finished east of eden by steinbeck and atwood's alias grace, both of which were good but kind of haunting or disturbing. my next plan is gone with the wind, wuthering heights, maybe christy even though i've read it many times before. but what i really need to get cracking on is the undergraduate syntax text before syntactic theory starts in october. ack. it would be stupid not to start that soon...will also be starting to look at, what i will next do with my life, i know i will not stay here in the ling dept. but i am going to apply to the uw's MATESOL program, kind of a back up to stay an extra year. otherwise...a couple of phd programs in the northeast (this comes with staggeringly giant question marks attached) and i think i will also apply to a couple of jobs like what kathleen had at cyo last year, the tutoring center i'm going to volunteer at has a couple of americorps positions open every year, and the refugee women's alliance down in kind of the same area of the city has jobs open periodically for teachers and program coordinators. really, i just don't know, so i think i will apply for a bunch of completely different things and see what comes up. i may have written all this before.

heading down to portland on friday with cheryl to look at apartments for her (cheryl is in town!!! i'm so excited to have such an old good friend so close by again, even if she is in portland, it's three hours away and she has a boy in seattle so i will be sure to see her so much more than when she was in florida!!!) and will hopefully be seeing amanda and sonia this week when amanda's in town for family stuff. kerry's gone again this week for work, her current job ends at the end of september and she is looking for jobs at small presses, bookstores, or publishing internships. i'm hoping that she will get something amazing and good for her with somewhat normaller hours than what she has right now, and with no camping in skykomish for days on end, like now. you know how sometimes it gets so familiar that you forget what it was like to really need a presence? we feel very much in love lately; i guess that's because we are. <3.

timshel.

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:29:05 GMT

1. Are you sure of your sexual orientation? Or are you confused?:
i'm pretty sure that there isn't really anything to be sure of; it just is.

2. Are you open with your sexuality? Or is it a secret?:
it depends i guess. i haven't been very personal with most people i've met in seattle.

3. Who was the 1st person you told that you're a lesbian?:
i don't think i know for sure. probably cheryl. nate?

4. Is your hair short, medium, or long?:
medium to long.

5. Would you ever shave your head?:
no.

6. Do you own anything with the Gay Rainbow on it?:
i don't think so.

7. Do you consider yourself a Stud, Androgynous, or Femme?:
i'm pretty feminine, irrationality and all.

8. What type of females are you most attracted to?:
i guess smart ones. hippie ones.

9. What FAMOUS Lesbian is your favorite?:
i guess i think ellen is funnier than rosie o'donnell or melissa etheridge. those are the only ones i can think of.

10. Do you like watching The L Word?:
it confused me a lot that one time i watched and everyone was too pretty.

11. What is your favorite lesbian movie?:
i don't think i have one. they all kind of suck.

12. Do you have any Pride tattoo's?, if not, would you ever get one?:
i would never get a tatoo at all.

13. Do you go to Gay/Lesbian clubs?:
i went to those couple with helena that one time in paris, but we failed at it.

14. Would you ever be a Drag King? (If you're not already):
nope.

15. What name would you go by if you did do Drag?:
casey is usually a boy's name...

16. Have you ever been mistaken for a Male?:
i think the pink face would give me away.

17. Would you ever have a sex change to become a Male?:
no.

18. How do you feel about Homophobia?:
how do you think i feel!

19. How do you feel about Gays/Lesbians having children?:
i want to have babies...it seems like a good idea to me.

20. If it were legal, would you marry another Female?:
if she would marry me.

21. What FAMOUS lesbian singer do you like the most?
ani difranco???

22. Have you ever attended a Gay Pride Festival?:
nope.

23. Do you wear make-up?:
most days a little.

24. Do you carry a wallet?, or a purse?:
well, if i regularly carried either of those things, i wouldn't keep losing my drivers licence and my safeway card...

25. Do you wear Male clothes?:
not really. my clothes are just my clothes.

26. Do you prefer wearing cologne instead of perfume?:
i don't wear either.

27. Do you have several piercings & tattoo's?:
nope.

28. Do you have a crush on a female celebrity, if so, who?:
um. kiera knightley? (really only because she played elizabeth bennet)

29. How did your parents handle you telling them about your orientation?:
not well.

30. Do you have more Gay/Lesbian/Bi friends than you do Straight friends?:
unfortunately no!

31. Have you ever been gay bashed?:
what?

32. Did anyone stop having contact with you after you came out of the closet?:
sort of.

33. What is your favorite gay/lesbian quote?:
k says some pretty funny things.

34. Do you believe you were born a lesbian?:
no.

35. Are you proud? Or ashamed of your sexuality?:
i'm neither, i think. (weird.)

procrastination...

Thu, 31 May 2007 15:09:31 GMT

http://www.womenofuw.com/ i just have one thing to say: ick.

that's a lie. i have more than one thing.

- i'm not doing my homework even though i should be, i basically have three papers due mid next week and they're never going to get done.

- we have visitors - erin and leeann are here for a gene therapy conference and are staying with us. we're going to rent canoes.

- i got a second (small) job yesterday, tutoring some business man in french, two nights a week downtown. they pay $23/hr, which i can't really complin about.

- i have a meeting with the advisor for the MATESOL program today. i feel like i'm cheating on linguistics, wanting to change programs, can you just finish a master's degree in something you didn't start out in? and i'm not sure how possible it is to just 'switch' departments. i guess that's why we're meeting. i have no idea what i want to come of it.

- the refugee women's alliance has a part-time job posted for a youth specialist at their bilingual orientation center, which would basically be working in / in charge of their after-school tutoring and college bound programs. that's exactly the job i want. but it's in south seattle and i already have one and a half summer jobs. hm.

- the real job i actually have will start june 18th, teaching all of french 101 and 102 in six weeks. why anyone would want to learn french this way, i have no clue. basically instead of having a week to do a chapter, you have about four and a half hours. which works out in terms of hours/week, but not in terms of...actually learning anything.

- i need some yoga in my life. everything makes me tense.

pale wildwood flower. this will be long, cut.

Sun, 13 May 2007 18:17:19 GMT

the girl went home for this weekend. she's coming back this afternoon. being home alone was weird. thursday and friday i was at school all day, so it was only yesterday and today that really felt strange, although weekday evenings alone are pretty strange too. so i've spent the weekend downloading and watching episodes of gilmore girls -- i've been obsessed since i found out that the series finale is next tuesday and then it will be over forever. i think i have a weird emotional attachment to the show because i used to watch with my mom. (was so happy rory wouldn't marry logan; i knew all along that something about it all was not right, and if he really loved her, he would have waited for her. now it's just for lorelai and luke to get back together, and i have so much faith in that.) i shouldn't really be this obsessed with a tv show, especially one i started watching when i was...16? but on tv everything always works out, and on shows like this, bad situations always get resolved and important people never die. this week i discovered bit torrent and have downloaded a bunch of things, including whole cds which i didn't know you could do, i now have some excellent live johnny cash and some fake also -- the soundtrack from walk the line which i love for its own merits but couldn't bring myself to buy because it seemed stupid to prefer joaquin phoenix pretending to be johnny cash to the actual guy. (i think i do really prefer reese witherspoon to the real june carter though.)

i went shopping yesterday morning -- i don't have any money but it had been a while since i'd been shopping for myself and a much, much longer while since i felt like i could go to a store and try things on and be happy about the way they looked on me. i guess all the walking i do to and from school has been super good for me. an hour a day most days of the week, and it's extra good for me because i justify it as something i should do as being cheaper than taking the bus, so it doesn't feel so much like exercise as just something i have to do. so i actually do it, instead of skipping it and feeling guilty. i fit into a size ten pants yesterday -- it's seriously been years and years since that happened, and i bought a bunch of cute things (on sale all), in small sizes!, that looked both cute on the rack and on me in the dressing room, which also hasn't happened since...ever, really. this makes me sound superficial, but really, it's been so long since i felt good about my weight and at the same time wasn't trying so hard, it was really upifting. bad for my budget, though.

(also, i almost bought this shirt, but thought i looked too much like cameron from house to actually consider buying it. right?)

so i'm working on my final paper for phonology, and yesterday updated and sent out my resume to the washington academy of languages, where they teach adult french classes in the evenings, and i need another job for the summer besides just teaching at uw. i keep getting sucked into searching for jobs with refugee resettlement programs in seattle, but as much as i loved the work i did last summer, it isn't a viable option for me right now. i guess this is partially what i meant in my last entry about school being trivial. i'm not qualified for anything but volunteer work in an ESL program, and i don't have time / can't afford to volunteer when all the centers are outside the city and open on weekdays and i don't have a car. i would like to be doing that kind of work though, especially teaching kids; i think i'm generally well-suited for academia but it was only after this summer that i realized how closed that circle is and how little it does for the rest of the world. i'm not doing any good writing papers and reading about obscure abstract linguistic theory...working with those kids was the most rewarding job i've ever had, and the most challenging, and was for an extremely good cause that i haven't been able to let go of, even though i can't really go back there specifically. here, i'm teaching, but no one needs to know french in order to survive or maintain a better quality of life, and most of my students really don't give a shit and don't even like it. i kind of wish i had the guts to switch out of the ling dept. and apply for the MATESOL program here, while keeping my teaching asisstantship (this would actually be technically possible -- because where else would i get this good a deal on a decent education?) but i feel like i would regret quitting halfway through a degree, and worry about what my professors there would think of me, even if they knew i was switching to another degree program and not just dropping out, in terms of needing them for references etc. i guess i would kind of like some advice on this if you've actually read this far. people do switch around departments, but i'm not really sure how this is viewed...it would also require a lot more work and classes that i wouldn't necessarily be excited to take, though i would like to be certified to teach ESL and this would be the best road to take since it would be essentially free. i guess it's partly what i mean when i say i want my life to be simpler; i want to be doing good work that's rewarding and useful to someone. (but this isn't just about work or school, it's about what i do with my free time, the vegetables planted in the backyard, cooking and reading and mking music and writing and seeing beautiful countryside and enjoying summer. i think it's about getting rid of tv, writing letters, feeling productive and useful and connected to things and people. it's wanting something intangible and simple and beautiful that i see but don't have and can't seem to quite reach.)

also, my dad and brother plus two will be here on thursday, and i'm freaking out. or, i'm ignoring it and planning to freak out later.

the rest of the day consists of finishing my paper proposal, cleaning up the damn mess i've left all over being here alone, making soup and bread for dinner, picking up the girl at the airport...shower, laundry, water plants. (package up some mail to send out!!!)

i straightened my hair on friday because i was bored and wanted to see if it was dry enough outside yet for it to stay straight...every time i straighten my hair i have a dream that i then wash it out but it stays straight when it's dry, and i've ruined my curly hair forever.

a p.s.

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:36:41 GMT

i think i'm aching for something. i don't know what it is, but it makes me feel like school, especially today, is the most trivial thing i could possibly do. i don't know what this means.

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:47:35 GMT

last night i kind of wanted to update and didn't because i was reading about west african grebo in order to find a paper topic fror phonology. now i guess i'm updating because...well, i should still be reading to find a paper topic, and i should be studying for my midterm today (god. that still sounds so weird). i'm despairing a little, mostly because everything i want to study these days is considered a dead end by most people currently in the field. sweet, huh? so i'm thinking of forgetting how much i love french and latin and defaulting to west african language study. i found some interesting articles on vernacular liberian english, the dialect most of my kids from the summer spoke before they came here. i've been told that my thesis doesn't have to necessarily be very related to whatever research i end up doing for the rest of my life (in a phd program, which is a big if, right now) but i don't know how i feel about that.

i had a busy weekend, first the ZOO with a giant group of fr 103 students which was actually pretty awesome even though when the idea was proposed i was like, they're 20 year olds, not middle schoolers. but it was extra credit and the kids that decided to go were really kind of into it, that is, until the trip took an hour longer than planned...even my two students who are most chronically late to class, and many days do not show up at all, were there on time, at 10h30 on a saturday morning. j'étais impressionnée. most of them were actually interested and asked questions, which made it better than taking middle schoolers to the zoo because they did not run away and hide in bushes or try to throw things over fences (not that i had this exact experience last summer). then k and i went to the giant friends of the seattle library book sale at magnuson park and i found some excellent items, including an old french/modern french text of la chanson de roland, sarraute's les fruits d'or, duras' l'amant, an arsène lupin book, an old english/modern english text of the canterbury tales, and arnold's latin prose compisition (old! 1929)...for about seven dollars total. sometimes i really love books.

sunday we hiked up rattlesnake ridge.

this is what northwest forest looks like - it always reminds me of dinosaurs.

the clouds were absolutely incredible that day. thought it wouldn't be worth hiking if it wsn't sunny out, but i was wrong.

some cute kid i ran into on the trail. we hooked up later (shh) -- hiking is awesome.

it was not a hard or long hike which i was happy about, as i haven't been hiking that much in my life and not recently either, but the view was beautiful and made me want to hike more, get out of the city more often. i was amazed by how quiet the air around the trail was -- i guess i don't notice all the background noise of the city until i'm not in it anymore, but it felt impossibly still. by the way, i'm posting these pictures to encourage / lure any of you to come visit me this summer...

the exciting event of the week was the fact that i, for the second time in my life, spilled a whole lot of liquid into my laptop. this time, it had honey in it. i got it back up and running though, unlike last time, which is pretty lucky. the keyboard and mouse are pretty sticky though, and therefore really screwed up, so i had to unplug the original keyboard and and am using external ones, which is inconvenient but not as inconvenient as, say, losing all my files and not having a computer. depending on how well i get paid this summer, i might buy a new one in the next few months, as this one is about eight years old at this point as has served me well. but sometimes, i feel like a jerk complaining about how poor i am, and then planning things like 'buy new laptop'.

i've been meaning to send out some mail to some important people in my life, hopefully i will get to that this weekend. right now, must get ready for school and then walk in the rain a bit.

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:14:57 GMT

the corner of the library on campus.

deception pass, outside mount vernon.

sweet statue in deception pass state park.

<3<3.

gotta watch house tonight. he's saving lives,but this time on a plane at 30,000 ft. how sexy.

i haven't updated in almost three months.

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:58:04 GMT

it's been spring here for, incredibly, about three weeks. everything in this city blooms when the sun comes out; i walk down my street and most trees have flowers on them, and in early april no less. we started a collection of plants this past weekend on a makeshift table in the bedroom under the sunniest window. we went to home depot to buy pots and soil for them on sunday, now we have basil, oregano, tarragon, cilantro, chives, and beet and shallot seedlings. i'm in love love love with the green in our apartment. in other botanical news, we went up north last saturday (a town called mount vernon...!) to see the tulip farms in bloom before they're all cut down. i will maybe post a picture because i did not imagine anything as crazy as they actually were.

classes are not great this quarter. i'm taking intro to morphology which is taught with this textbook that i'm sure was written for middle-schoolers and taught by a professor who i think is great personally but has to be the most boring, droning, tangential speaker i've ever heard. he's also teaching another class i'm taking, the history of the french language, which is only today starting to get better. phonology II is actually great though, and maybe just by default as the only challenging class i'm taking, but it's super technical, very theoretical and dense material and i'm still getting [most of] it, which i'm really proud of. i'm starting to think that historical phonology could be in my masters-thesis-related future. but it still feels like i'm in an undergraduate level program that offers a couple of upper-level courses and awards a master's degree for just a little bit of extra work, which is not what i signed up for and makes me turned off to the idea of continuing in a phd program, at least right away. but mmmm, optimality theory.

i feel like my eating habits have gotten horrendous lately. i think most of what i've eaten since the end of last week is bread products and easter candy (kerry's mom and my dad each sent us an easter box last week). i'm walking to school again though, half an hour each way, so i feel okay about it for now.

my french class is okay this quarter...nobody wants to hear me bitch about how much i hate the textbook and the method, but really it's the students that drive me crazy. i bend over backward to help them out, make exceptions, go over and over things, and make sure every bit of info they need for anything is available in multiple ways so there is no excuse for not knowing anything. and yet they still have excuses, for why they missed something on the test, for why they didn't hand in homework, for why they didn't show up to class four days in a row. i suppose when i've been doing this for longer, i'll get used to it and not let it get to me so much. but i don't want to just teach for the money and not care, either. i'm going to be teaching over the summer for six weeks, twenty weeks of material in six should be interesting. BUT i hear you get paid the same amount in six weeks as you would for twenty during the year, becaue you're covering the same amount of material, so that could be pretty sweet.

aside from teaching in a crappy room without a whiteboard, i'm excited for summer, for camping and seeing mountains and rainforest, for visitors, for california and oregon and british columbia...growing tomatoes in the back yard, evening walks, open windows, reading real books...maybe i'll actually get some things onto paper too, all these things that are sort of pushing around in my head but won't come out as poetry, scraps and phrases.

3-6-07
Today, I put the sugar bowl in the fridge.
I re-wired a lamp with a yellow cord, took
books from the library that I only partially
intend to read, and watched court TV. I begged
the blast of warm March air to come inside,
threw open the windows and doors. I looked
at old photos of my mother, sixth grade, ninth,
then spoke of her in the past tense without once
referring to her by name. I scrubbed
the kitchen counters clean.

4/10/07
I fail to see how
a mountain
could become a fact of life, like
a discarded cigarette on the sidewalk
or the fact that April comes, every year.

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:51:21 GMT

it's true; i only update this when kerry is not around on my days off. i have mlk day off so i slept til eight and looked at sunrise light over the montlake bridge and made tea.

i've been having weird homesick dreams that i don't want to talk about out loud because they'll make me start crying. dreams about my mother being airlifted out of our house to the hospital, about my dad knowing she would never come home again, dreams about my grandparents' old house on cross road, the steps down to the basement, the swing in the backyard. i'm starting to want to write again but i worry it will all come out like this: just a list, no details, and it won't mean anything to anyone else. (does it have to? sometimes i think no, but i remember what got torn apart in poetry workshops i took and i shrink back inside myself.)

i'm feeling very disorganized with regards to my teaching this quarter so far -- i feel like i don't know what i'm doing, even though that's not entirely true because i did this last quarter...the issue is that i got stuck with most of the transfer students who didn't take 101 at the uw with us last quarter, so they're both entirely unused to the unusual teaching method, new textbook, and rules of the course, and that they're all at different places in their learning (i.e. we did the past tense last quarter, but most of them haven't ever had it). no one warned me this would be the case in the winter quarter, and it's pretty much just my section, so i just have to deal with it on my own. so i have to simultaneously manage to reteach all the major grammar points of last quarter and still fit in the ten days' worth of material built in to the textbook that's supposed to fit into seven classes.

also, the fan in my laptop died again and i know it's time to replace the computer all together but i absolutely can't afford it and i turned down the idea of a new computer from my dad for my birthday because i felt it wasn't necessary.

mm, also, i had a pretty depressing conversation with jonathan clare the other day about the state of the linguistics dept. and am kind of starting to feel like i should hurry up and get out of here. there seems to be a huge discrepancy between the courses they claim to offer and the courses they actually offer on a regular basis. obviously they offer all the computational ling courses all the time because it's an up and coming field, but any of the courses i would want to take are offered once a year at best, and the one real expert in historical indo-european, romance, and morphology is retiring after the spring quarter and i could be left without a thesis advisor who really knows the field i want to work in. i told kerry the other day, flipping through a book called the roots of english in a lunch cafe in port townsend, that i thought i might just be too late for what i want to study; it's all been done and there's very little left to do for anyone crazy enough to want to study it now. when i said this out loud, i sounded sadder than i expected to. the thing is though, i'm enjoying being here -- it's just that i feel like i'm waiting for the good stuff to come around, i'm taking classes that are not spectacularly interesting or well-done in order to get to the good ones -- but what if i never get to take really great ones? jonathan said that he's taken a lot of courses he's not particularly interested in just to fill up space waiting for his requirements to be filled and for good courses to be offered, but sometimes they never`are. so i wonder if this is a fault of the uw or of grad school programs in linguistics in general, and if i'm wasting my time. at least i'm not wasting much money doing this.

today i'm going to: clean the apartment a little? try to cover over some of our windows with plastic sheets to keep the apartment a little warmer (we had a huge crying fight about this yesterday, for only all of the same old reasons). maybe go to the craft store in ballard to buy yarn for a new hat, since i have a day off and a car. do homework reading in introduction to phonology and the history of the romance languages and organize for class this week. maybe go running for the first time since...june? maybe.

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 06:59:20 GMT

1. EVER BEEN GIVEN AN ENGAGEMENT Ring?
no.

2. LONGEST RELATIONSHIP?
four years, on monday.

3. LAST GIFT YOU RECEIVED
my dad got me an ipod nano for my birthday.

4. EVER DROPPED A CELL PHONE?
i guess.

5. WHEN'S THE LAST TIME YOU WORKED OUT?
ick, it was like, june.

6. THING(S) YOU SPEND A LOT OF MONEY ON?
rent.

7. LAST FOOD YOU ATE?
chicken pot pie.

8. FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX?
fluffy hair.

9. ONE FAVORITE SONG?
this week, milord by edith piaf.

10. WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
east shelby st, seattle.

11. HIGH SCHOOL YOU ATTENDED:
west genesee.

12. CELL PHONE SERVICE PROVIDER:
verizon.

13. FAVORITE MALL STORE:
jc penney.

14. LONGEST JOB YOU HAD:
four years ish.

15. DO YOU OWN A PAIR OF DICE?
no.

16. DO YOU PRANK CALL PEOPLE?:
no.

17. LAST WEDDING YOU ATTENDED:
laurie and nate's back in 2004?

18. FIRST FRIEND YOU'D CALL IF YOU WON THE LOTTERY:
kerry.

19. LAST TIME YOU SAW YOUR BEST FRIEND:
sunday night.

20. FAVORITE FAST FOOD RESTAURANT:
kfc?

21. BIGGEST LIE YOU HAVE EVER HEARD:
'we'll have snow for christmas!'

23. WHERE'S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO EAT WITH FRIENDS?
portage bay cafe.

24. CAN YOU COOK?
mhm.

25. WHAT CAR DO YOU DRIVE?:
kerry's civic.

26. BEST KISSES:
while conferencing.

27. LAST TIME YOU CRIED?:
yesterday.

28. MOST DISLIKED FOODS:
american cheese.

29. THING YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT YOURSELF:
my academic brain. too bad it can't seem to get a grasp on any common sense.

30. THING YOU DISLIKE MOST ABOUT YOURSELF:
i get too nervous around people.

32. LONGEST SHIFT YOU HAVE WORKED AT A JOB?:
12ish hours at cyo. not that i wasn't having fun.

33. FAVORITE MOVIE?
it's a wonderful life, little women, while you were sleeping.

34. Can you sing?
sometimes!

35. LAST CONCERT ATTENDED?
choral fest.

36. LAST KISS?
sunday night.

37. LAST MOVIE RENTED:
the great new wonderful. months ago!

38.ONE THING YOU NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT:
pants.

39. FAVORITE VACATION SPOT:
wales.

40. WHERE ARE QUESTIONS 40-42?
what

43. LAPTOP OR DESKTOP COMPUTER?
laptop.

44. FAVORITE COMEDIAN?:
i don't think i have one.

45. DO YOU SMOKE?
no.

46. SLEEP WITH OR WITHOUT CLOTHES?
mostly with.

47. WHO SLEEPS WITH YOU EVERY NIGHT?:
girl.

48. DO LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS WORK?:
they can.

49. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BEEN PULLED OVER BY THE POLICE?
only once for speeding.

50. PANCAKES OR FRENCH TOAST?
french toast.

51. DO YOU LIKE COFFEE?:
yes.

52 HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS?
scrambled.

53. DO YOU BELIEVE IN ASTROLOGY?
no.

54. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?:
kerry.

55. LAST PERSON ON YOUR MISSED CALL LIST?:
audrey.

56. WHAT WAS THE LAST TEXT MESSAGE YOU RECIEVED?:
from kerry saying her plane was leaving new york.

57 HOW DOES YOUR VOICE MAIL ANSWER?
i don't know, hi this is casey?.

58. NUMBER OF PILLOWS?:
1 or 2.

59. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING RIGHT NOW?:
jeans, wcc t shirt, purple hoodie.

60. PICK A LYRIC, ANY LYRIC:
allez venez milord, vous asseoir a ma table, il fait si froid dehors, ici c'est confortable...

61. WHAT KIND OF JELLY DO YOU LIKE ON YOUR PB & J?:
red.

62. CAN YOU PLAY POOL?:
kinda.

63. CAN YOU SWIM?
enough to escape drowning.

64. FAVORITE ICE CREAM?:
coffee.

65. DO YOU LIKE MAPS?
LOVE LOVE LOVE

66. TELL ME A RANDOM FACT ABOUT YOURSELF:
i kind of want to be a bluegrass musician.

67. WHAT UNDERWEAR ARE YOU WEARING?:
black from h and m.

68. EVER ATTEND A THEME PARTY?:
i don't think so.

69. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON
fall.

70. LAST TIME YOU LAUGHED AT SOMETHING STUPID?
watching friends tonight.

71. WHAT TIME DID YOU WAKE UP THIS MORNING ?
nine ish.

72. BEST THING ABOUT WINTER?:
snow...

73. LAST TIME A COP GAVE YOU A TICKET?:
never.

75. NAME OF YOUR FIRST PET?:
dax.

76. DO YOU THINK PIRATES ARE COOL OR OVERRATED?:
so cool.

77. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS WEEKEND??
maybe going somewhere fun with the girl for our birthdays.

78. BIRTHDATE
january 4.

79. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE:
everything.

85. ARE YOU ON A LAPTOP?:
yes.

87. ARE YOU SMILING?:
no.

89. DO YOU MISS SOMEONE RIGHT NOW
yes.

90. IF YOU COULD GO ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD WHERE WOULD YOU GO?
somewhere cold.

92. ARE YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL?:
no.

93. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH?
yes.

94. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NAME?
i don't know.

95. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BATHING SUIT?:
black.

96. DOES YOUR SCHOOL START IN AUGUST?:
no.

97. DID YOU GO ON VACATION LAST MONTH?:
i went to bellingham...and i went home?

98. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON A CRUISE?:.
no.

99. DO YOU HAVE A SISTER
no.

100. ARE YOU UPSTAIRS?:
no.

101. ARE YOU IN LOVE?:
yes.

102. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN THE HOSPITAL?
yes.

103. DO YOU WISH YOU COULD SEE ANYONE PARTICULAR RIGHT NOW?
yes.

104. WHAT JEWELRY ARE YOU WEARING
none, strangely.

105. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO AFTER THIS SURVEY?
pick up the girl at the airport!

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:04:31 GMT

1.What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
graduated college, moved to seattle, lived with a beautiful girl, took a graduate level class, hung out with liberian refugee teens...

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
i didn't make any, and i won't make any this year...

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
not very close.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
very close.

5. What countries did you visit?
just this one. i looked at canada from across some water, does that count?

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
more ambition to read, and to socialize, and to speak french.

7. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory?
august 19th, the day my mom died.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
getting to seattle / starting grad school and not having a nervous breakdown.

9. What was your biggest failure?
falling back into old, unsociable habits.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
um, i cut my finger up in september...

11. What was the best thing you bought?
fabric to make my quilt?

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
my dad.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
that kid in my french class who didn't show up for my final exam.

14. Where did most of your money go?
the apartment. and i'm still behind.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
leaving sarah lawrence, getting into grad school, working at cyo, getting into university chorale, visiting new york kids.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
rain by patty griffin. sexyback and all the sweet hiphop/rap i listened to on 107.9 with my kids all summer.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?
sadder, in some ways. much happier in some ways.

ii. thinner or fatter?
first time in many years i can say: thinner! i lost at least 15 lbs in 2006.

iii. richer or poorer?
poorer, oh god.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
babysitting. reading things in french.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
fighting with my family.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
with my dad and my brother.

21. How did you be spend New Year's Eve?
being lame, watching hgtv at kerry's house, then packing to leave for seattle the next morning.

22. Did you fall in love in 2006?
many times.

23. How many one night stands?
haha.

24. What was your favourite TV programme?
gilmore girls, what not to wear, judging amy, the 4400.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
i don't hate people.

26. What was the best book you read?
i don't really read anymore.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
patty griffin, the wailing jennys.

28. What did you want and get?
an apartment with my girl.

29. What did you want and not get?
more time with my mom, i guess.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
i just saw charlotte's web, and the one before that was take the lead in the spring...those might have been the only ones i saw all year.

31. What did you do on your birthday?
i don't remember. probably nothing.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
well, fewer funerals.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
shops-at-target-but-tries-not-to-show-it?

34. What kept you sane?
kerry. school. teaching, strangely. cyo.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
marty on gilmore girls? i was super excited when he reappeared, even though he's being an asshole.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
i don't think there was one.

37. Who did you miss?
kerry. my parents. my dog.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
gertrude.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.
you can't go through life with nothing terrible ever happening to you.

40. Quote a song lyric/movie/tv quote that sums up your year:
que sera, sera. funny that i'm currently listening to this.

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 15:40:45 GMT

i decided on a picture post because i've been meaning to put up some beautiful photos before going home to miss seattle for three weeks. i leave tonight at 1 am.

(these pictures were all taken in extraordinarily beautiful weather. don't think everything you've heard about seattle weather is wrong because of them.)

the view from the end of our street.

view of the olympics from golden gardens in ballard.

side of the building i was teaching in this quarter.

view of the cascades on my walk to school.

rowing under the university bridge. (i wish it was me)

beautiful sunrise one morning before we left for work.

red square by the library on campus.

the tiny amount of snow we got in november.

amazing view of mt. rainier this week on my way to school, covered in snow -- it's rarely ever clear enough to see it like this.

rainier over the fountain on campus.

and it was even better on my way home two hours later.

it's a good thing i'm in love with this city...

my exams are all graded, grades ready to turn in...had one student not show up for the final, and hasn't contacted me at all. it shouldn't surprise me from this particular kid, but i cant imagine. will spend the morning writing phonological rules, finishing my transcriptions, running errands. will make pizza dough and cookys for dinner with the girl tonight. will clean. will shower, will enjoy our little christmas tree, will wait for her to come home.

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 02:27:45 GMT

it's been a weird week. this weekend k and i drove up to bellingham where they got all the crazy snow a couple of weeks ago. it's a really cute little town by the water that reminds me a little of bronxville or skaneateles, bigger, but with all the little shops and cafes and no parking...it was really nice to get out of the city, to drive up the coast on a semi clear day, to eat really good mushroom soup on the second floor of a bookstore on a hill with a view of the water and the san juan islands, canada across the way. we went into two pottery shops with things i can't afford. it made me sad because all i do is think about the beautiful things i would make for us if i had access to a wheel and a kiln. by all the beautiful things, i mostly mean, all the mugs. we bought a box of christmas cards with a funny little dog and his snowdog on them. we're very domestic and kind of like a little 2 person family. i'm in love with our life right now, even though the apartment is cold and damp.

monday i had my choir concert dress rehearsal and the actual concert, and didn't get home until after 9 pm. it was weird, and nice, to perform in a chorus again, and it mostly just made me really miss chorale which is stupid because it was so long ago. the choir i was in was the generic no audition undergraduate choir, so it was a little less challenging and interesting than i was used to / wanted. so i decided i wasn't going to stay in it next quarter. but i'm getting the opportunity to audition for the university chorale tomorrow...i definitely haven't auditioned for anything in years, so i'm a little nervous, but i figure i have nothing to lose -- if i get in, i would love singing with this choir, and if i don't, my schedule won't be really crazy and i would actually have time to do work. i have to sight read, and i don't know if i remember how...

i cleaned our apartment like CRAZY today. it really needed it, and i had an excuse: we're having a dinner guest. andy, the boy who lives upstairs. he has a scraggly beard and it's nice to be friends with boys. although, he came down last night to tell us he could come have dinner with us tonight, and we were super lame and in our pajamas and clearly in bed watching tv at 8:30. (p.s. my dad bought us cable for a few months for christmas. how sweet is it? very.)

i'm so happy that i finished my awful teaching methods paper (about half an hour ago!). it was basically, write what you've learned from this class, for 8-10 pages. and it was all bullshit, oh well. now i just have my phonetics paper, and i have to take care of grading compositions, quizzes, and the finals for my class, then i'm done. with my first quarter of grad school. i worry about how easy this has been. am going home tuesday. going to visit the bronxville kids the following saturday for a couple of days, which will be very good for me (and hopefully for them too). i miss having real good friends. and, cookys.

i have pictures to post soon.

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:13:11 GMT

if you check out seattle on weather.com, the forecast title links say things like "learn how to layer" and "grab your snowshoes". even though it's apparentely 36 degrees out right now and all the snow is melted. last night when i got into the airport it was snowing. i was in upstate new york for three days and it was 50 and sunny the whole time. sometimes, i love this city because it's always busy surprising me. forecasting "one to three inches of slushy accumulation" for today, tomorrow...

i was happy to be home, in some ways. now i'm happy to be home here. hoping for more snow. even it's slushy accumulation.

from cascades to puget sound.

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 02:14:52 GMT

it's been pouring all day long. i've been listening to the postal service for a couple of hours now, i'm not sure if it's fitting the way i feel or making me more depressed. i finally freaked out about going home (one week from today). i also kind of freaked out because ashleigh posted about her hanukkah party on the 15th, and i hadn't realized that was the start of hanukkah. now i don't know if i should leave my dad to come to new york when 1) i've only been home for two days and 2) it's the first night of hanukkah. it's not like we ever do anything, light candles, but. god. i'm going to do so much crying at home in the next month. i'm kind of worried that i'll go home next week and then have to come back here and. fall apart. i've been holding it together so well the last couple of months. and i know i need to deal with it at some point, but does it have to be now...

one of my students friended me on facebook. he kind of follows me around after class sometimes, so i added him back, because he's a nice kid, but took my phone number, address, link to this off my facebook profile first. also, there's an oldish man who audits my class who is an artist and an art historian. today he brought me a super nicely printed art book with prints of his paintings etc. that he wants me to buy. and also a drawing. of my face. 'give this drawing to your husband. or your boyfriend. maybe you wil buy my book? take it home today, you can bring me money tomorrow.' blinks. is it okay that i'm uncomfortable with this?

i'm gotten addicted to sudoku on usatoday.com. but right now i'm oing a crossword and --> to leer at someone means to look at them lustfully? i always thought it meant to make fun of them.

waiting for the girl. it's falafel night, which will help. and in an hour, a laser light show from the top of the space needle that we'll be able to see if we walk down the street to the bridge.

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:57:56 GMT

dammit. teaching is stupid. being a TA means that you're a student but you don't ever have the option of just not going to school.

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 15:40:57 GMT

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

ah, it's true! except for that dumb pop thing. ask me to say the word 'accent' sometime. upstaters palatalize their low back vowels...in case you were wondering, this is what i mean when i say i'm going to grad shool for linguistics, it's this.

real update soon, promise, yes.

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:45:27 GMT

the weather here is still beautiful every day and i am getting more and more spoiled. next week it should start to rain and it won't stop until spring. but for now, completely clear skies, warm sun, cold breeze -- this means you can see mt. rainier if you stop on the top of the university bridge on the way to my house. it still looks kind of like a postcard set up behind the tree line of the southern end of the city.

but i've had a couple of moments recently where i stopped walking on my way to school and wished for just a second that i was at sarah lawrence. or the breeze will blow a certain way and it smells like fall on the east coast -- it's subtly different here and i'm not sure i could describe the difference, but in a way i'm a little homesick for bronxville at this time of year. i miss people all the time, but it's only sometimes that i miss the feel of the physical place. i read through the lit and french dept. 06-07 course offerings the other night and kind of liked the idea of classes i would be taking if i was still there. i miss the fact that i could go to class in jeans and a hoodie and flip flops unless there was snow on the ground -- i'm not sure if it's that i miss being an undergrad in some ways or what. i wore jeans to school for the first time today, but it's not quite the same caliber of dress-down if you wear a nice button-down shirt and cute shoes. i never thought i dressed all that strangely to begin with, and certainly not in the context of sarah lawrence, but i look at what i would wear to class there and i feel like i could get away with very little of it here, at least when teaching, which is every weekday and therefore always. i don't know. i'm mostly missing east coast fall, the real color changing leaves (only some of them do here), that particular smell. this really has little to do with clothes.

i already drink more coffee than i would normally, but i think this is mostly by the fact of living with kerry and not the fact of living in seattle. i got paid for the first time yesterday, which was exciting, but then i paid my tuition bill and credit card bill and almost half of it is already gone. i also bought a ticket home for thanksgiving -- it was painfully expensive but my dad offered to pay for it either fully or for now until i can pay him back. i don't think i'll be able to pay him back any time in the near future, but i plan to at some point. i feel like going home for three days is frivolous, especially since it's so expensive, but i also feel like if there was ever a time i need to go home, it's this thanksgiving and this christmas. kerry's mother is coming tonight and will be here until sunday night. k's having a rough week and it isn't really the best time for her to have a visitor to entertain, but. i think it will be fine. i guess that's all; need to do more laundry and homework before tonight.

ooh, also. apparentely all the walking here is doing me good -- i took a shirt out of k's side of the closet that i had give her a while ago because it was way too small on me, tried it on and it fit well, was even a little big. mmm, walking.

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 20:08:27 GMT

so i actually have three hours right now where i have to stay at school but have nothing pressing to do. this has not happened in a couple of weeks, as you can see from my not having updated my journal since before when i was alone and lonely. i'm now sitting in my OFFICE, eating lunch, waiting for this reception i have to go to at 330. ('my office' sounds much better to people who don't know i share it with three other people. but so far i haven't really run into any times when i've had to share the space with someone else, so it's pretty much mine in my imagination.)

i'm teaching french, and this is going surprisingly well. it's fr 101, so i get largely blank stares from twenty-twenty four pairs of eyes while i'm speaking, but they seem to pick up a little more every day and it's kind of an amazing process to watch. i'm having some issues with the teaching method and the text (it's a brand new textbook using a new method written by the program coordinator -- you would probably only be interested if you're rose) but i have to remember it's just a job, i'm new, i do my best, and we'll see how it goes. they have their first quiz tomorrow, and i think i'm even more nervous for it than they are. i already have all these issues with students planning to miss large amounts of class for various reasons (for one, miss the midterm) but i feel important when a bunch of students congregate at the desk at the front of the room when class is over to ask me nervous questions.

p.s. i make a LOT of mistakes when i'm speaking in class. is this normal?

my classes are great. i'm technically only taking one real class, the other two are required for the TAship and are pretty much not what i'm excited about -- language teaching methodology taught by this crazy german man named klaus who goes cross eyed every time he tries to come up with a word in english that won't come to him right away. the other teaching class is a seminar for specifically the french TAs, and they're nice, but i'm terrified of speaking french with them and with the program coordinator, who are all actually french. this is probably not a line of work i want to pursue permanently if i'm scared to speak french. my one real class is intro to phonetics and so far is fascinating. it reminds me of how excited i was to work with ann lauinger last year and why i applied for this program in the first place.

also, i found a chorus to sing in and even though i know soon i won't really have the time to attend frivolous things like chorus rehearsals twice a week, we're singing DECK THE HALLS IN 7/8 and probably for this reason only i need to find the time to keep going.

our apartment is getting to be really cute and homey. we bought a desk at target last week (look at it here!) and a beautiful coffee table that has a glass top and these pretty stone/slate diamond shape decorations set into a shelf underneath. this is her first week of work, and she's gone from 6 am to 630 pm mon-thurs. we eat dinner when she gets home but after that. she's basically ready to go to bed...workweek is going to be hard at first i think. but she has three day weekends and i'm done at 1030 on fridays, so we'll be okay. (do i need to say how nice it is to share the space with her, to have her there when i go to sleep and wake up, to be able to talk in person and not on the phone or online, to be able to split everything in half if we want?)

i miss home, though. i miss my dad and my brother, my mom. i keep having dreams about my mother -- last night she was in a prison because the infirmary there was supposedly better than the hospital, but when it came time for her to come home, we had some fake ID for her and they found out and wouldn't release her. i don't know. i've gotten so much nice mail here from various people in my life (i will return it when i have a chance), and really it isn't that long until thanksgiving -- next week kerry's mother will be here visiting, then it will be getting to the middle and end of october, and then it's november and i can go home for a few days. being home is going to be hard too, though. dear melanie, i owe you a long letter.

i think that's all...we're getting internet installed in the apartment on friday! starting this weekend i should be able to keep up better with everyone i miss.

ooh, also, because i teach five days a week, i go to school every day looking like a teacher in nice pants and tops and a really beautiful looking black trench / rain coat that was only $30.

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 19:45:39 GMT

someone just walked in with a husky on a leash, and he is so incredibly pretty. so pretty. <3

that's pretty much all i have to say of today. it's grey and cooler than it has been. i'm going to drag up the courage to walk around my new campus for a while, maybe go find out my teaching assignment if i'm really brave. i'm seeing kathleen today, and the thought of this plus looking at brian's cyo pictures on facebook and emailing some pics to mina like i promised makes me really homesick for cyo. yesterday, i finished, really finished, my quilt, and napped under it while watching as good as it gets last night and it's pretty warm and the perfect size for a couch blanket. i also finished covering the chair seats on our beautiful iron kitchen chairs. screwing bottom seat screws into wood without an electric screwdriver is difficult, and i have even more respect for those pioneers who built whole houses without power tools. tomorrow, i'm going shopping for pants.

also, i'm wearing my favourite t-shirt of kerry's. it's a bright yellow west genesee xc shirt and i might have fallen in love with her the day in high school when i remember her wearing it, with these jeans with red flannel patches on the knees and a blue bandanna. and i have to say, i look pretty cute in it, and intend on acquiring it. she can't complain, since she brought and left in the closet probably close to thirty track shirts, most of which i'm sure i've never seen her wear.

also, there's a boy on the other side of the room who looks like sean miskell.

also, one day and a half until denver.