23 April 2007

my life in paragraph form

last week was weird. first we had a wind storm on sunday which knocked out power to half the county for four days. meaning that we didn't have school on monday or tuesday, which completely messed up all my lesson plans (booo). also, it meant that the rotc trip i was supposed to chaperone got postponed to the end of may. i was really disappointed, because i was looking forward to it and i didn't want to teach for those three days.

then there was the whole virginia tech thing. fortunately, mary is ok (along with all the other people i know at tech). that guy shot the first two people in her dorm, but fortunately her eight o'clock class was cancelled, so she was still in bed when he was going through the halls. then, once the shootings happened, they put her whole building on lockdown, so by the time he started the second round, she was already hunkered down in her dorm room with the door locked and listening to a police scanner. she woke me up freaking out over the phone about people getting shot. i guess that was better than the alternative: turning on the t.v., seeing that 33 people were dead, and having no clue where she was. (hence it was my main duty to spend the morning tracking down my grandmother, so she would have a heart attack when she turned on the radio.)

i was sad about everything, but it didn't really hit me until late that night when i actually thought about the fact that she could have been killed. then i kind of freaked out. and i really got sad when she started talking about they guy she knew who was killed. he had been in the marching band with her, and that really hit close to home.

other than that, my life has been consumed with the play i'm working on. it opens on friday, and we really, really aren't ready. i got spoiled by theatre at college, with how good we were. i feel like i'm in culture shock now. people don't know what they're doing, sometimes they show up, they don't fit the roles, etc. it can work to my advantage though. i don't think the costumes are any good (due to the fact that i had a grand total of $100 for a show with numbers from 22 different musicals, 85% of which are period shows), but everybody else thinks they are amazing.

and as i write this, my classroom is being invaded by sixty driver's ed kids and their extremely annoyed teacher. so i think it's time to go.

observations from lunch duty

i realize that you're young and in love, but is it really necessary to make out in the middle of the cafeteria?

sheesh.

total amazingness

i paid off my car!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yesterday i wrote a check for $1502.48 (thank you federal tax return) and officially paid off the car. now i won't feel quite so enraged whenever the dumb thing breaks down, because at least now i won't be making car payments and paying for whatever transmission/brakes/battery related issues it may come up with.

and it has new tires, which only cost me $325 instead of the $800 it would cost if i was in northern virginia. this is the benefit of living in a town where the guy who owns the tire place not only went to high school with your parents, but your grandmother taught him in the 8th grade and his son is the college roommate of your cousin's boyfriend. there are definitely things i'm going to miss about small town life.

19 April 2007

bad sign

for dinner tonight, i was responsible for finding my own food.


i ate three handfuls of peanuts and a bowl of broccoli. at 9:45.


this does not bode well for my future.

05 April 2007

such as it is

a few updates, uninspired though they may be.

* rotc: to provide further proof that i've lost my mind, i volunteered to chaperone on the rotc trip to d.c. at the end of april. should be quite the adventure. we're leaving on a wednesday morning, and not getting back till the next sunday evening. i will either have a fabulous time, or have killed somebody at the end. most likely the person who made the transportation decision: an activity bus. for nine hours each way. with 35 teenagers. all kidding aside, though, i'm probably one of the best people to go with them, because i know so much about what they'll be seeing.

* school: is school. this morning i officially told my principal that i wasn't coming back next year. it was hard. i almost started crying (though i think that's more from being hormonal, and not that i'm that attached to the school). i kind of feel like i'm letting everybody down, because they turned down so many other people, most of whom had a lot more experience than me. then i think of how nice it will be to go to work and not have to yell at teenagers all day, and i feel much better.

* job hunting: i have a job starting in july. granted, it's working for my dad, but it still provides a paycheck. i'm going to be doing technical writing for his company. basically, i have to take all the medical-speak and engineering techno-babble, and translate it into language that normal washington, d.c. bureaucrats can understand, via weekly reports, papers, and presentations. the job is temporary (hopefully), until the other job i want comes through. i officially submitted the extremely long application for that one about a week ago. who knows how long it will take to hear from them.

* moving out: i have a roommate for next year - a girl i've known since 8th grade. we're going to start apartment scrounging in a few weeks. the goal: two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, nice neighborhood, near the metro, near work, near her family, near josh, very cheap. HA! i think we have a better chance of finding the lost city of atlantis. hopefully we can find a decent place for between $1200 and $1500 a month.

* theatre: i'm beginning to regret my adventure in community theatre. the show is driving me crazy. it's a broadway revue, with a cast of over 60 and 25 musical numbers, almost all of which need period costumes. plus, it's community theatre, so nobody is normal sized. and then there are other, unique challenges, such as how to costume "hey big spender" from sweet charity (a song about hookers) so that a) the very large, middle-aged women singing the song won't look ridiculous, and b) the costumes won't offend the bible-belt audience. not an easy job. my biggest mistake was to be in the show. it's my every-other-year venture onto stage, which i usually end up hating and remember why i quit acting in the first place. i'm only in two numbers, but it's enough to make want to retreat back into the wings.

that's about it. i go to work, go to the gym, go to rehearsal, go home.

but at least i get more sleep than i did in college.

04 April 2007

mapquest has nothing on mary

my sister is what would happen if Lifetime: Television for Women ever gave directions. tomorrow i am picking her up at college to take her home for easter. this is how she told me to get there. unfortunately i'm not making any of this up.

"you take 460. then you come to the first light which has all the signs leading to the athletics complex. and you turn. at the first light, the one next to the football stadium (you can't miss the football stadium, it's very big), you turn left onto a road that i don't know the name of, but it's very obvious...wait, wait, wait, my roommate says it's spring road. and it's by the stadium. it's a very short road. you're then going to come up to the big round basketball colliseum and across the road from that is a parking lot. the basketball colliseum is on the left and the lot is on the right. no! wait! it's the other way around. the lot is on the left, and the colliseum is on the right. park in that lot. then my dorm is the big stone dorm building, but they're all big and stone, so just call me when you get here. oh, and stop for the pedestrians, cause they'll walk out in front of your car. that's the rule. they tell you at orientation, 'walk in front of cars, they'll stop'."

and this is the same person who received a full academic scholarship and will graduate in three years?