The Lauren Daily Experiment

Carnival Contradictions

2012-02-09T23:12:00.000-05:00

Today was Carnival day at placement. Translation? I was outside from... nine-ish until noon-ish. The grade eights had the privilege of hosting the event for the rest of the school and I was to be the "responsible adult" at station eight.

Station eight was stick handling. Basically, you have a hockey stick and you have to weave a wiffle ball through pylons. It's not very complicated (though it is adorable to watch barely coordinated six year olds attempt it). The first few times the event was done, it was pretty subdued. Like... pretty sad. The kids walked through the pylons and when they were done, they sat down staring at us like "Yeah, so what's next?" Damn the mandatory eleven minutes at each station! It was after the second team left that I did something I never thought I would do.

I told the two students manning the station to stand at the end of the course. I told them to really play up that it was a race. I told them to make it a best two out of three. And then I really outdid myself by asking them to add some enthusiasm by cheering on the kids who were racing. The one student... is a lot like me in a number of ways. She grumbles, she talks a big game, she's got attitude buried under her fairly quiet demeanour, but she's a softy. When I told her to be enthusiastic, she just looked at me, completely unimpressed and said "What? Like a prep?" and then mimicked a cheerleader on crack. Unfortunately, my Me-ness shone through and I cringed. I told her she should probably tone it down a bit. She snorted and walked to the end of the course calling back "I don't do happy!" I think I've actually said that to people... so it was really hard not to laugh. She was actually a very good sport. And yes, I cheered along (as much as I ever cheer for anything) to be the good example.

Is this that principle that parents threaten their children with coming into play? You know, when you're a horrible child, as a reward, you give birth to a horrible child that stresses you out the same way you stressed your parents out? Does that apply to teaching?

Carnival continued with a visit from Bonhomme Carnaval. It's a French thing. The only issue with our Bonhomme is that the costume is really old and kind of creepy looking. So it scared kids. While funny, that's not really the reaction loveable snowmen are supposed to elicit. The day ended with a volleyball game between teachers and students. I nearly had to play. I'm dangerous while walking, I don't play volleyball for a reason. Didn't stop two of my students from trying to coax me into playing. It would have made for excellent blackmail material. I'm so onto them it's insane. Crafty little boogers.

This isn't our Bonhomme. Ours has a glossy plastic head that's yellowed with age. Super sexy.

Tomorrow I go bowling. What will happen when I return to my former summer workplace? Probably nothing because they didn't know I was working there when I was working there. But I know they have banana slushies... so we'll see.

Lauren.

The Tired Of List

2012-02-08T22:56:00.000-05:00

I say I'm tired a lot. And I am. I'm mentally tired, physically tired, emotionally tired. But tired of what? What makes me so tired?

Because I need to vent and because I like lists, I've provided you with a list of things I am really tired of.

Succeeding in spite of people. For once, I would like to succeed with the help of someone, with the guidance of someone. I'm really tired of having crappy experiences with crappy people and only having an eventual, distant end to console myself with. I'd like to have a positive experience to look back on.
Coming out better for it. That's what people like to tell me by means of consoling me for all the crap I've endured at the hands of others. I'm already a good person. I don't need to be better. It's crappy people who should treat me better for being a better person. But they won't. Because they're crappy.
Closets. I came out four years ago. I've enjoyed my time out. I have no intentions of going back in and I'm really starting to get pissed about having to be there for the sake of my career. When I finally find someone I love, I don't want to deny her because of her gender. Not to keep my job, not to get a job. A job that doesn't let me be me, isn't for me. And it's really their loss because I'm good at what I do.
People watching me. I'm really over people sitting back and watching how I work and judging me. I'm new. I know I'm new. I know I need to learn, that I'm not even remotely close to perfect. I'm tired of people telling me. Just help me learn. Show me, let me practice and shut up about it.
People telling me that I have to do something because it's my job. Guess what! There are things that I cannot do. There are things that no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I may want to, that I will not be able to do. I realize it's my job, I realize I need to be flexible, so be flexible with me. If I honestly cannot teach a subject, if I'm only confusing students, for God sake, stop torturing us and let me teach something else!

So, not a good day to be Lauren. I'm really pissed off right now. I'm sure you could tell. This list represents today's five point indictment of the BEd program. Consider carefully before applying. It murders your soul, crushes your spirit and spears your brain with thoughts of "you paid to have your soul murdered and your spirit crushed".

Is there such a thing as a soul defibrillator?

Lauren.

I'd Rather Stick Chalk Up My Nose

2012-02-07T21:06:00.000-05:00

When I was in high school I usually spent more than an hour doing my math homework. When I did it. I usually got frustrated and threw my book somewhere. By grade ten I was spending time with my teachers during lunch and sometimes after school. In grade eleven, I took it to the next step. I wound up getting myself not one, but three tutors. Even with all that help, I’m pretty sure that I only passed because everyone did so poorly on the final exam that my teacher had to bump our grades. I’m amazed we evoked that much pity.

Finally free of math, I basked in my numberless paradise, my calculator-free existence, my binders empty of graph paper. I basked! To complete my science requirement in university, I took computer science thereby avoiding the math hidden in biology, astronomy, physics and the other one. CHEMISTRY! I avoided having to take it in teacher’s college by applying to the intermediate/senior stream. That means that I haven’t actually been in a math class or thought about math in about... five years.

Until today.

After years of struggling with math and avoiding it the way a skilful dodgeball player avoids being nailed in the face by half a dozen stray balls flying at her face, I have to teach math.

WHAT THE HELL! I did everything right! I can only think of one person who must understand how I feel but she’s on a whole other level where holiness is concerned.

I finally decided to start lesson planning and had to stop. It took an hour, but I finally understand it and know how to explain it. I don’t think people understand when I say that I’m not good at math. It’s not modesty. For me, it’s like being spoken to in a foreign language. Kind of like watching parts of this week’s Glee less the catchy beats.

Thank God for youtube. I got some strange woman to teach me how to rotate a shape using proper English terminology. Yup, another plus of my education. Prior to university, all of my education was done in French. Meaning that on top of not understanding the majority of the concepts, I don’t know the words that are being used.

Why can’t my one educational hurdle ever just go away?

BLAST YOU MATH! THIS MEANS WAR!

Lauren.

My New Neighbours

2012-02-06T21:00:00.003-05:00

I've always lived in the same house. For most of my life, I've had the same room. Therefore, I've always had the same neighbours. My parents' room to my left, my neighbours' house to my right.

When I was on my last placement, my neighbours were a row of books and the teacher's desk. Actually, if we're being specific, my neighbour was the garbage/recycling bin. I had better conversations with the teacher though.

Now that I'm on my new placement, my neighbours are the EA on my left and to my right, I have an assortment of critters. There are grasshoppers, maggots, fish and lizards oh my! When I first sat down, I was really quite grossed out by the maggots. I decided not to look at them. The grasshoppers weren't an immediate issue, but the longer I sit here, the more I happen to look over, the grosser I find them. I don't know what it is... maybe it's the twisting of their fine, little legs as they move about and crawl over each other. Yup, that's definitely part of it. Still doesn't compare to a rearing maggot though. The fact that they're lizard food kind of makes it better. So long as I'm not the one that has to pick them out.

As for the fish, they don't bother me at all. They just float around, occasionally open and close their mouths. They're actually pretty nice looking fish. Except for the ones in the second aquarium. I wasn't able to see them initially so I asked a student what was in the aquarium. He responded with: "Dead fish". I just started to laugh. As did the EA. After staring really hard for a while longer, I was in fact able to see at least one live fish in the dead fish aquarium. Hilariously enough, that one is pirate treasure themed and so the dead fish fit in well with the skulls and other bones at the bottom.

And then there's the lizard. I don't know what kind he is, but I'm going to call him Sammy the Staring Lizard. Every time I happen to turn around, he's staring at me. Not in my direction. At me. And then he'll do this crazy little hop-skip bashing himself against the glass of the aquarium as if to say "HEY YOU! I'M LOOKIN' AT CHOO! LEMME OUTTA HERE!" Sorry Sammy. As neat as you are to look at, you're on your own. Just because I'm new doesn't mean that I'll magically grant you your freedom. Where would you go? This is Canada. In winter. You'll freeze your little tail off (possibly literally) before you even get to the door of the classroom. So knock it off! Stare at something else. Stare at the kid sitting in front of me with the really curly hair.

I have a sense that I'll become allied with Sammy in the coming weeks. Can I threaten to feed the naughty children to a lizard a little bigger than my hand? Somehow I don't think they'd believe me.

Lauren: Pssst! Hey, Sammy, how do you feel about eating people?

Sammy: Not good Lauren, not good.

Lauren: Fair enough. Besides, I don't want to be the one that has to touch the maggots and grasshoppers.

Sammy: You're such a wuss. You know, you could just put the whole container in here. I'll take care of feeding myself.

Lauren: Yeah... I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.

Sammy: You're new. What do you know. Now, give Sammy his precious.

Lauren: You've seen Lord of the Rings?

Sammy: Maybe...

Lauren: So... I'm here, you're here...

Sammy: I really don't date outside my species Lauren.

Lauren: Yeah... thanks. Because that's what I was going to ask. Actually I was wondering if--

Sammy: I'm sorry Lauren. I'm really not playing hard to get. I don't want to have dinner with you.

Lauren: Riiiiiight. So what I was actually going to ask is if you'd be interested in--

Sammy: Oh fine! We'll go see a movie but you're paying. Can we see the one with the Justin Bieber creature? The kids are always talking about him and I'm curious.

Lauren: No! I'm not trying to ask you out! You know what? I give up. I'll see you tomorrow morning Sammy.

I'm talking to a lizard... I have a date with a lizard. Meh, at least he's a literal lizard. I have to say, BEd is horrible for your mental health.

Lauren.

'Twas the Eve of my Placement

2012-02-05T23:40:00.000-05:00

'Twas the eve of my placement and all through my head
Stirred thoughts of sleeping, warm, in my bed
I wasn't yet worried for what tomorrow would bring
Though getting up that early... that's just not my thing

I would once more don my wardrobe of dress pants and shirts
On the odd days I'd wear cardigans, but never would I wear skirts
Once more I'd become a pack mule carrying everything on my person
At Christmas I should have asked for a rolly-bag... I didn't learn my lesson

A bunch of new students' faces and names I will soon have to learn
The thought of teaching math makes my stomach churn
The principles of "fake it, 'til you make it" in my class I'll apply
Hopefully it will be enough to get by

So, you've probably guessed that today's the day before I go back on placement. I know I said I respected poetry as an art-form, but parody is also art. ... I didn't say it was good art.

Here are the things I'm looking forward to at my new placement:

I'm nearly ten years older than my students this time. That should help remedy my problem of speaking too informally.
It's close to where my mom works so I'll always have transportation!
Though I'm teaching math, I'm more likely to understand it now. I'd still be screwed with high school math so I'm glad that's not the case.
I'm in an elementary school so they still have field trips and stuff. I believe my new AT mentioned something about a carnival and skating.
I'm with the same kids most of the day. Which could be a good or bad thing, I realize. I'll learn their names faster, they'll get used to me faster, I'll get used to the routines faster...

We'll see. Wether I'm ready or not, I start tomorrow. Seven weeks! Bring it!

Lauren.

Movies, Activism and Boredom

2012-02-05T00:20:00.000-05:00

I'm watching GI Joe, Rise of the Cobra and I'm trying to remember when I saw it. This is all very familiar, I know I've seen it, can't remember when, or where. I mustn't have been very impressed.

Other than that, I hung out with some girls I was friends with before BEd. They both happen to be in BEd programs now, but that's beside the point. We all worked on the... how to phrase it... non-heterosexual awareness for teachers seminar we're planning. We got quite a bit done. The plan is in place. We just have to make it look pretty, pitch it to the dean, get approval, get funding, confirm one more speaker, book a room and hold it. Oh! and get people to come. Easy peasy.

That's the only productive thing I did today. Since a retelling of my boring day would be boring, I think borrowing the words of Jack Prelutsky is entirely justified. For those people a least my age, maybe a bit younger, I first learned about his poetry on Arthur. I learned many things from Arthur, the most important of which was how to spell aardvark and nervous. I hope you enjoy the poem as much as I did when I first heard it.

It s a very boring day
There is nothing much to look at,
There is nothing much to say,
There s a peacock on my sneakers,
There s a penguin on my head,
There s a dormouse on my doorstep,
I am going back to bed.

Today is very boring,
It is boring through and through,
There is absolutely nothing
That I think I want to do,
I see giants riding rhinos,
And an ogre with a sword,
There s a dragon blowing smoke rings,
I am positively bored.

Today is very boring,
I can hardly help but yawn,
There s a flying saucer landing
In the middle of my lawn,
A volcano just erupted
Less than half a mile away,
And I think I felt an earthquake,
It s a very boring day.

Again, this is by Jack Prelutsky. Not me. I don't write poetry because I respect poetry as an art form.

Lauren.

Journey for Cheaper Gas (FAIL!)

2012-02-03T22:05:00.000-05:00

Final day of classes! For seven weeks. It's going to be weird being away from my cousin for so long. Saying that is weird. Prior to this experience, I could go months without seeing him. Now it's unusual if I don't see him every three days or so. We had placement at the same school last time. We even shared a classroom. It went a long way in the comfort department to know that he was there and that I could goof off with him or bitch about something with him. As I discovered, teachers are awful gossips and the staffroom is where all the details get passed around. I liked having a safe person I could just vent to. But now we're separated! Separated I tells ya!

Anyway, I was eager to leave school. I'm at a point where I'm pretty fed up with everything. The change of pace will be good. My dad was waiting for me when I exited the building. He had a strange proposal.

There's a town about forty five minutes away from here. Apparently the gas at one of the gas stations there was 11 cents cheaper than here in town. For those savings, my dad wanted to make the trip. If that sounds ridiculous to you, gas prices here in the Middle of Nowhere are hovering somewhere around 1.30$/L. When you get to that point, 11 cents is a big deal.

Given that I had nothing better to do and the weather was... cloudy but decent for travelling, I opted to accompany him. Provided I got food. It was noon. I was hungry. I wasn't anticipating a random road trip. I would have packed a lunch otherwise. Because my dad is a wonderful man, he got me food and we were off!

The drive was uneventful. For a while we puzzled and puzzled 'til our puzzlers were sore, but we couldn't figure out what the hell a backhoe was doing on some random highway offshoot. There was also a new tower thingy that hadn't been there before. Fascinating!

Finally, we got to the gas station. I had three predictions. Guess which one happened:

a) the price of gas went up
b) due to the low price of gas, there was no more gas
c) it was all an illusion
d) a and b

It's A! But I was secretly anticipating d... Yup, by the time we pulled in, gas was 1,27.7$ I feel like the .7 is a personal insult. Like, they've already nickel and dimed me so now their going to tenth of a penny me? How rude. The irony is that when my dad did the calculation, he saved about 2$ but used about 3$ worth of gas to get to this fabled low gas price. Plus, there were three other stations along the way advertising that price. So... he could have saved money if we'd stopped sooner.

We returned home and on the way I saw two ponies! One was brown and the other one was white! They were facing opposite directions but standing really close together so I think they were just mad at each other and too stubborn to apologize. It's so sad when these things happen...

And that was my adventure for today. I hope you see where I get my terrible luck from. Could be worse.

Lauren.

Fantasy Fulfilled!

2012-02-02T21:00:00.002-05:00

I live a pretty rich fantasy life... in my head. Seriously, it rocks in there! If you're me... or if I like you. If I don't like you, I don't suggest visiting. In any case, the majority of the time, I do not act to fulfil my various and assorted fantasies. Get your mind out of the gutter if that's where it went. I'm talking about fantasies that can be fulfilled in public without fear of arrest. And today, I fulfilled one!

It was a rather unexpected occurence. I'd just gotten out of a class that I thoroughly dislike. I have serious issue with my professor... namely that I don't like him as an educator much less as a person. Needless to say, I was in a terrible mood. My day wasn't over yet though. I had a meeting with my group from another class. We're presenting on child abuse when we get back from our placement and we wanted to assign tasks. The meeting went well.

Beside us, some other students kept playing all kinds of songs ranging from Gloria Estefan to Brittany Spears to the Backstreet Boys. It was very memory lane and we all wound up singing and dancing along at one point. It was impossible not to. Here's the thing. My MP3 player has speakers so I can share music. Once our meeting broke up, I turned it on, put on a Glee does Brittany Spears classic and along with two friends, sang and danced my way through the halls and out of the school. Yes, we were stared at. The point?

I've wanted to do that for at least a decade!

You know that scene from The First Wives Club with Diane Keaton, Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn? At the very end when they sing You Don't Own Me and sing and dance their way down the street? It looks like this if you have no clue what I'm talking about. For years! YEARS! I've wanted to do that! I don't know why. It just seems like such fun!

And now I know what it's like! I finally did it! AND IT IS FUN! We started out to Glee's version of Toxic. After that we moved on to Glee's version of Firework. We added a lyric: Do you ever feel like a plastic... spoon. I don't know why that came out, but it was fantastic. Oh Glee... I don't sing or dance, but you make me sing and dance. I Imagine we looked very much like The First Wives only less synchronized. We weren't scripted after all.

I can now check this off my list of things to do. Thank you to the girls who made this fantasy possible. The fact that it was random and spontaneous makes it even better. If you're surprised by the strangeness of having this as a fantasy, well, it's me. That's the only explanation I can offer you.

I highly recommend doing this. It put me in a much better mood. Wonder what fantasy I'll accomplish next.

Lauren.

Quinn Fabray Needs to Learn Reverse Psychology

2012-02-01T22:45:00.000-05:00

Okay! I stayed up late (for me). I watched Glee and since I haven't done a full on Glee post in ages, I shall write a full on, all out Glee post today.

So, last night's episode. Shall I begin with the music? I'll admit, I like a number of Michael Jackson songs, but I only know the really popular ones... Thriller (of course), Billy Jean, the one they sang in the parking lot... probably a few others. Point is, I rather liked the music. I think what they did with the songs was really neat and they were so catchy! I wonder why I didn't dream of Glee instead of dreaming of messing up on MasterChef. It's more likely that I'd be on Glee than get to that stage of MasterChef. Anywho, I liked the music.

Now, I can't believe I'm going to say these words, but I'm actually on Finn's side here. For now! It's only temporary I swear! I see him getting the short end of the stick on this one and I realize it's for the sake of drama, but it was kind of douchey. I don't like him, but I feel bad for him. I mean, Rachel initially tries to sleep with him for the sake of her career. The writers temporarily lost their minds during that episode so we'll ignore it. And then in this episode, she only agrees to marry him once she's convinced herself that her dreams will never come true. I Finn bash a lot because he's... Finn which is synonymous with dim-witted and man-child. But in this season, Rachel's been using him right back. He's her consolation prize or her career experiment. What is it with unhealthy relationships being glorified these days (Bella and Edward)? Firstly, they have nothing in common. Secondly, they want two completely different lives. Thirdly, beyond saying "he's nice, I love him" what reasons do they actually have for being together? Big emotional breakup: hopefully imminent.

I rather enjoyed the reversal of fates in this episode. Quinn the Lima-loser realtor married to Finn wound up getting her escape while Rachel got to fester in Quinn's former shoes. Yes, Quinn has suddenly snapped out of her crazy phase, but I like her so much more like this. Glee needs a... sane character. Since it's Quinn I'll use the term sane kind of loosely. And now that I'm on the topic of Quinn and her newfound wisdom, why does Rachel keep asking for Quinn's opinion on matters? Have you noticed that whenever Quinn gives her opinion, Rachel does the exact opposite? "Rachel, don't sleep with him." She slept with Finn. "Rachel don't marry him" She agreed to marry Finn. "Rachel, don't dump that whining, dead-weight boyfriend of yours and definitely do not make a pass at me because I'm not interested at all. Faberry is the last thing anyone wants to see." And then Rachel dumped Finn, asked Quinn out and they-- Oh... sorry. That hasn't happened. Just... putting the idea out there... Yup.

So, now that I've finished with those three, on to Blaine, Kurt and the other dude. If my girlfriend hated someone that much, I would not associate with that person. I don't ditch my friends for no reason, but if someone I love and trust reacts that badly to someone, obviously there is a reason. And what the hell is Blaine doing hanging out with Dude anyway? Isn't he aware that he's trying to break up his relationship with Kurt? That happened right? Or was that a conversation between Kurt and Cranky-Pants? Either way, I hope Blaine has learned his lesson. Listen to Kurt or you get rock salt chucked in your eye.

Artie's blow up, kind of random... Being joined by Mike, also kind of random, though I was entertained by the musical number that followed. Mercedes and Sam, hopefully you've gotten it out of your systems because it was getting on my nerves. Santana, lovely argument. She probably has a point. If Kurt had taped a tape recorder to his junk, no one would have complained. Stand up for the under boob Santana!

And that's what I thought of... GLEE!

Lauren.

Sleeeeeep... THEN MacHomer!

2012-01-31T21:52:00.000-05:00

Pretty uneventful day.

I somehow fell asleep in class. For whatever reason, I just couldn't hold my head up any longer. I was still listening and then about twenty minutes later, I woke up. It couldn't have been more obvious. I was sitting next to my cousin. He happened to turn around and he started to laugh. He asked me: Did you fall asleep on your hand? I frowned and then I clued in. Yup, I had a big red mark on my forehead from where it had been resting on my hand. My hand had a matching mark. My prof must have been really impressed. At least I didn't snore or drool... I know I didn't drool. I would hope my friends would have poked me or something if I'd started snoring.

Other than that, I went to see MacHomer. It's a one man show. He does the voices of the characters from the Simpsons and performs Macbeth. It was pretty amazing actually. He went straight through, no intermission, I lost count of how many characters he voiced... Seriously. He did everyone from Homer to Dr. Nick, to Hank Moleman. And he did them really well. Mr Burns was amazing, Marge was amazing, Ned... Barney, MOE! Jesus was even in it. I probably should say that given the content of my other posts this week...

I was laughing throughout. The woman next to me deafened me in my right ear. My parents were entertained but didn't get a lot of the jokes. They don't watch the Simpsons. So, maybe a bit of a caution there... I love them for going with me.

It was a bit of much needed levity. What's even more surprising is that his voice was intact by the end...

Alas, I must away to my homework. And then watch Glee... I was watching MacHomer. Now I have to stay up until midnight to find out if I have to hate Rachel or not. I'd better not have to hate Rachel... (shakes fist at TV people).

And with that threat, I really do have to go.

Lauren.

Teaching Controversy in Catholic Schools

2012-01-30T23:38:00.000-05:00

Lauren Daily, student teacher, intermediate/senior division, section three, English/history specialist. I'm not giving you my student number.

That's me. My position in the little army that is teacher's college. I believe I must now add to my present title. Sure, yesterday I was calling myself a radical religion teacher. Today, I think I need to add rogue to that. I've never been what anyone could call badass. Apparently, when it comes to education, I'm on the dark side of the force. I'm a rogue agent. Yup, WTF is about the first thing I thought too.

Tonight, I was presenting a religion lesson to my religion class. It was group thing. We'd taken one of my lessons from placement and tweaked it up a bit to fit the parameters of this particular assignment. The content was the same for the most part.

We got up. One member did the opening prayer for acceptance. One member explained our rationale. I explained the curriculum expectations, the Catholic Graduate expectations. Two members explained the background information really well, better than I ever could. And then I was up again. The lesson got a little controversial here.

The activity that I originally taught, that we decided to present to our class, was an activity in which students were to consider controversial issues (homosexuality, divorce, equal rights and cloning) alongside some quotes taken from the Bible. Some of the quotes were contrary to homosexuality, divorce, equal rights and cloning. Some of the quotes were positive regarding these issues. The point of the exercise is for students to consider the Bible and how it can be interpreted. The activity then leads into a class discussion about what the Bible says and what the students' interpretations and feelings are.

It should be said that this lesson was designed to be taught in a Catholic School and is being taught during the Christianity unit of the grade 11 World Religions class. I wouldn't try teaching this lesson to a younger group.

When the discussion wrapped up, I put on the "You Can't Pray Away the Gay" clip from Grey's Anatomy. We chose the clip because like the activity, there were Bible quotes being thrown around that were both for and against homosexuality. On top of which, it's a very powerful clip that underlines how two interpretations can still be correct.

The lesson wrapped up shortly afterward and my prof, who happens to be well placed in the local Catholic board, decided that she had cautions to add to ours. If we were to do this lesson in a school, we should:

Tell the administration
Have qualified people in the room while the lesson is being taught so they can answer student questions (like a priest or other religious official)
Send a letter home to parents advising them of the content of the lesson
Know our class and our students very well

She also suggested having a debate on homosexuality rather than showing the Grey's Anatomy clip. Yeah, never in a million years would I open that can of worms. A debate means that someone has to be against. I would never, even if I trusted the kids, allow those things to be said in my classroom. It's different when you're watching a clip and you know that the people are acting and reading scripts. To hear your peers quoting Bible verses at you, telling you that the way you choose the express love for another human being is a sin, well, no. Abso-fucking-lutely not (pardon my language). Gay kids have enough to worry about. All kids care about is what people think of them. Finish that lesson and ask the closeted gay kid to distinguish between what's being said and what's felt sincerely by their friends and classmates. Seriously. Just like I wouldn't do a debate on abortion for the same reasons. I would not want to be the girl who's had an abortion, which is traumatic enough, having to sit there, listening to my peers go over the biblical pros and cons of my actions. Talk about a gross lack of sensitivity! If my child came home and told me this had happened in his/her classroom, I would be livid. LIVID. And you can probably see that livid-Lauren isn't that pleasant to be around.

The discussion is different. Those who want to speak can. Those who don't, don't have to. It's a safe place for honest talking and respect for others and for others' opinions are enforced. It's controlled. It's incredibly difficult to control a debate. Try reigning in a teenager who has a point and wants to come up with a witty statement to stump or insult the opposing side. Particularly when the issues are this sensitive, this prominent and this complicated.

Moreover, could simply talking about these subjects be any more complicated? Can we inform any more people that this lesson is happening? I'm not telling students what's right, what's wrong. I'm asking them to think. I'm asking them to look at their values, their morals, their ethics and to consider their faith and how those values, morals and ethics fit within their faith. I'm asking them to interpret.

I'm glad I asked my group not to say that the idea was originally mine and that I have taught this lesson, successfully might I add. Even funnier, she thanked us for being brave enough to teach it...

Again, I don't think I'll ever be fit to teach in a Catholic board. I think she'd die laughing if she saw my application. Come to think of it, I don't know that I'll be fit to teach at a secondary or elementary level at all. I'm just too badass.

Lauren.

Radical Religion Teacher on the Loose!

2012-01-29T23:17:00.000-05:00

Like all good things, procrastination must also come to an end. It didn't go down without a fight though. It hung in until 4:00 this afternoon!

And then I regretted it.

I finished my take home exam. It took longer than I thought it would. I forgot how much I hate talking about my faith and religious beliefs. I don't know why, it just makes me very uncomfortable to talk about how I feel about God and Catholicism when it involves other people.

I answered the following three questions:

Describe your philosophy of Catholic education. How will you live out these beliefs in your classroom? Be certain to provide concrete examples.
How will the gospel values of our faith be visible in your classroom, your teaching and through your actions?
One of the Ontario Catholic School Graduate Expectations is that of ‘a responsible citizen’ who gives witness to Catholic social teaching by promoting peace, justice and the sacredness of human life. Discuss what this means to you and explain how you might help your students work toward meeting this expectation. Provide specific examples.

I view my faith as a part of who I am. I don't want or need (usually) to justify it or explain it to others. It's this kind of thing that makes me terribly uncomfortable walking into a Catholic school being an 'other'. Actually, when I went to meet my new AT, she went off an a bit of a "don't talk about homosexuality or any other sexuality" speech. It kind of came out of nowhere and I was wondering if my "I'm a lesbian" forehead stamp was showing.

Nevertheless, I answered the questions and my prof may not like my last answer. I talked about getting students to stop saying "that's so gay" and "that's so retarded" and referenced all the recent suicides of gay kids. Hey, it's a way of promoting peace (of mind for gay kids, an end to bullying toward gay and disabled kids), it promotes social justice and given all the suicides, I think it touches on the sacredness of life.

This is why I'm not deluding myself into thinking that I'd be able to teach in a Catholic board after this. We'll see how it goes over. My prof happens to be the superintendent of the board. My take on religion may be too radical. The irony is that Jesus was a radical and I think you could argue that he was an advocate for the improvement of social rights. I'm not all that different... Though hopefully I don't get nailed to a big piece of wood for my 33 birthday. I can think of better gifts. I'll make you a list.

My classroom management plan followed that. And no, it's not enough to simply say "I plan to manage my classroom". Nor is it acceptable to threaten your students with physical violence. My CDE prof never got the memo. I once joked that we should bring back "old school beatings". Not only was the comment dripping with sarcasm, I can't kill spiders because I don't like the crunching sound. I would feel really uncomfortable "old school beating" one of my students. And the guilt! If beatings were mandated my students would get away with everything and I would be okay with that.

So, in spite of my procrastination, I succeeded in completing everything that needed completing. Hopefully I can pull up my socks and get through this week without too much pain.

Lauren.

Weeks

2012-01-28T23:51:00.000-05:00

Another day spent successfully procrastinating. I know I'm going to regret it tomorrow but at least I was successful. I have readings to do for English, a take home exam to finish for religion, a management plan to finish for... well, management. After that, I have things due Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It's going to be a fast last week. Only one week left until placement. Only twelve weeks left to this school year. Only five weeks until the much awaited month of March.

It's all a question of weeks now. As slowly as I feel those weeks going by, when I look back, somehow, they've gone by quickly. It makes no sense. This is going to be a weird year to look back on. I can feel it. Ten years from now, I'm going to look back and think that this was the biggest roller coaster ride of a year. It's also the year I slept the best. I'm sure I'll miss portions of it... maybe... but I'm quite excited for it to be over. I enjoyed teaching, I enjoyed getting to know the students. For the most part, I could take or leave the rest.

What's another couple weeks?

Lauren.

My Version of Productive

2012-01-27T23:29:00.000-05:00

So, if you've been reading regularly, you've probably noticed that I haven't been in the greatest mood. Lots of stress at the moment and with one thing piling on top of another, I was starting to physically feel the anxiety building in my chest. Solution! Pop in on Angela, my former therapist. Prior to today, I'd actually not been to therapy in nearly seven months. Which is a big deal considering I would attend twice a month for four years. Anyway, I sat in the chair, I vented and I now feel so much better.

Overall, today wasn't a bad day. Rather productive actually. I was accused of stalking. I made a girl fall on the ground laughing. I learned to block a kick and a punch as well as how to get out of a grab should a student ever get physical. I blew off some steam in therapy where I may or may not have said something about people annoying me and a trash compactor. Probably one of my nastier comments to date. Does any of this require elaboration?

I have two classes one right after the other. They happen to be in the same room. I decided that it would be wise to use the washroom during the in between time. Because the closest bathroom on that floor always has a line, is usually dirty and the smell makes me gag, I decided that climbing two flights of stairs would be a better use of my time. I passed my English professor in the hall and entered the bathroom. I'd just closed the stall door when I heard my prof's wheely bag gliding along the floor. I don't really care who hears me pee so I finished my business and went to wash my hands. My prof emerged at the same time and asked me if I was following her. I wanted to answer that no, I wasn't following her as I was the one to enter the bathroom first. Therefore, she would be the one following ME. A disturbing notion. Instead I replied "Not on purpose." Doy. I'm glad we're both awkward. We cancelled each other out.

After that, I returned to my class where we're being CPI (crisis prevention intervention) certified. I was chosen to fill the role of a student and so was told to wait in the hall with half my classmates. While we were waiting, I was attacked by a rather vicious bout of heartburn. A girl asked me what was up and I told her. She then proceeded to suggest that I was pregnant because that's the only time she ever got heartburn. Before I knew it, another girl was in on the discussion of pregnancy. I decided that before it got out of hand, that I should set the record straight... so to speak. What's the best way to totally shut down a "maybe you're pregnant" debate? "I'm a gay virgin, I think I'm safe." The girl kind of froze for a second then burst out laughing. She wound up on the floor she was laughing so hard. Ein, all in a day's work.

Our professor came out into the hall, effectively cutting off our chucklefest. We returned to the class and commenced fake punching and kicking our partners. Kind of a good stress relief.

See, productivity has many definitions.

Lauren.

The "Tell Me About It" Question

2012-01-26T22:17:00.000-05:00

Today I'd like to take a brief moment to consider a popular expression. Yes, I have another question. What is up with the expression "Tell me about it"?

When we use this expression it's usually after someone has finished telling us a story. It's a way of agreeing. Well, if you think about it, that person literally just finished "telling you about it". Do you really want to hear it again? Were you not listening the first time?

Moreover, if "tell me about it" is a way of stating your approval or understanding, why should someone have to tell you more. You obviously get it. Wouldn't adding more detail simply be repetitive? Maybe if you didn't understand, "tell me about it" would be a way of asking someone to expand on a particular point of their story, but even then, it's kind of an odd way of phrasing the request.

If "tell me about it" is a way of closing a conversation, well, that's kind of backwards isn't it? Not only is it a crappy way of acknowledging that the person has finished talking on that topic, you're giving them an instruction to continue talking. Obviously, they don't want to do that. I believe that's misreading a social cue. "No, I will not tell you more, I have finished and want to move on to a different topic." Worst date ever! The only way I can see "tell me about it" logically closing a conversation is if you're being sarcastic. That would probably also fit under the category of first date no-nos. (And I'm not talking about the hair removal system though I'm sure grooming is appreciated).

"Tell me about it" belongs at the beginning of a conversation. If you notice someone is sad you could be all sensitive and say: "Hey, I'm here if you want to tell me about it".

I suppose "tell me about it" is really just another way of saying "say no more" which is the complete opposite of what it means. So why do we use it this way? It makes no sense.If you don't want to hear about it, why are you asking to hear about it? Reverse psychology once more slips into the world... and apparently it works. What clever person slipped this expression into our daily vocabulary? Such a person truly has a way with words. I require him/her for my next world domination scheme!

If anyone knows anything about the origin of this expression, feel free to tell me about it. See! I used it properly. I actually want to know! By the way, this is what spending four years at university studying English did to me. We're told all the time to pay attention to diction. Well in the real world outside of books, diction is messed up. Messed up I tells ya!

So, ponder that and if you're so inclined, share your thoughts with me.

Lauren.

My Forehead as Ad Space

2012-01-26T01:38:00.000-05:00

If I had to sum up what I do in BEd most days, it would probably come down to the following words: group work and presentations. That's about half of it and ironically, it's the half I hated with every fibre of my being when I was in lower school. Now, almost every class involves some kind of group activity. As a result, nearly every class requires some kind of presentation. I think the idea behind it all is to stomp out any potential fears of people, or, more specifically, being up in front of people. Immersion therapy, it works.

In my teachable subjects (English and history) we've been doing teaching strategy presentations.The ones in history have generally been more fun. And that's where my funny moment of the day is coming from! Shocker!

I was sitting in the back corner of the classroom with Guy Alex and my friend A. Her name isn't Alex. In any case, it was A's turn to present her teaching strategy. I have to admit that I'm jealous of the awesomeness of her strategy. Talk about setting the bar high. What did she present on? Headbands.

I refuse to spell it "Hedbanz"

I think it's probably self explanatory, but in Headbands, the players wear headbands and are outfitted with a card depicting something. It can be a person, a place, a thing. Each person then has to guess which card they're displaying on their forehead by asking questions. In A's case, she modified the game to be about WW2. For instance, Guy Alex was Anne Frank, a POW, a flamethrower. I wound up being Stalin, Japan, an atomic bomb. It's actually brilliant as a class activity. It's easily adaptable to any number of subjects, it requires students to know their material, it's an awesome review activity and it's so fun you forget you're studying. I realize that what I've described is not yet funny. I'm getting there.

So, A outfits me with a new card. Guy Alex instantly proclaims it to be difficult. Meanwhile, he has POWs on his head. I got to start asking the questions. I asked if I was a person. I was not. Guy Alex asked the same question. I think you know what the answer was. I don't know how many questions we'd asked before we decided the activity was too cool for our prof to miss out on. Guy Alex shouted out: "Hey Todd, you need to come see this!" drawing everyone's attention. Our professor looked over from across the room and did a double take when he saw me. Keep in mind I probably looked like the kid on the right. When I returned my attention to our table, I noticed that the group across the way were also regarding me with smirks and curious looks. At that point, I really wanted to know what the hell was on my head. Our prof sat down and watched us play. He looked very amused. He started helping Guy Alex which was totally not fair but I'm not a vindictive person so we'll leave it at that. The guessing continued as did the looks.

I was finally able to discover that I definitely served a military purpose. I wasn't a person or a place. I sort of kind of was part of military dress. After a while, I asked if I was the star patch. They looked at me like I was getting close. That's when I knew what was on my head and I could only laugh. What else could I do?

For a good ten minutes I was sporting a swastika on my forehead (fortunately not Charles Manson style). Normally, I wouldn't find that funny in the least. The only reason I found it funny was because I was completely oblivious. Think about it. Does anyone wear a swastika innocently? There I was, sitting, getting all excited at my progress in the game and meanwhile, I have one of the worlds most recognized hate symbols prominently on display. On my head. On highlighter coloured paper. For my whole class to see. My class who has no idea what we're doing at my table. Is there such a thing as a Catholic, lesbian Neo Nazi who finds the likes of Lea Michele ridiculously attractive? I think I broke three rules in that one sentence. Guess I'll never be a Nazi... oh darn... What will my classmates think!? Just to be clear, I am not a Nazi, I do not support Nazis, I think they belong to a terrible chapter in history and their continued existence baffles me.

Anyway, never thought I would wear that. So, today's lesson: never say never. Because let me tell you, sometimes, things sneak up on you and happen in innocent, unexpected ways. Let me think... what else did I say I would never do...

Lauren.

From Complaining to Quoting Dumbledore

2012-01-24T23:53:00.000-05:00

Not a whole lot to say about today. I was sleepy and therefore, cranky throughout.

I actually wrote a long post for today, but given the hour and how tired I am, I don't trust myself to post it. I may be rambling nonsensically. I started off complaining about one of my classes. By the time I realized that I'm tired and falling asleep but my fingers are still moving, I'd gotten to Dumbledore talking about the power of words. I think the progression is logical but at this point, there's no way to be sure.

I'm being cautious. At least those brain cells are still hard at work. I think they deserve a break. I can't keep giving them the overtime. It kills me in the long run. See what I mean? Now I'm into a potentially confusing metaphor.

I'm going to bed.

Lauren.

Not So Subtle Reminder (a good one)

2012-01-23T23:22:00.000-05:00

I wrote a few days ago that I've been hurt badly by people. And I have. I don't regret anything that's happened to me. I don't think I would change anything. I am who I am because of what I've lived. I like who I am. I wrote that I'm afraid of people. And I am. I don't trust people easily. I don't consider people to be my friend very easily. More often than not, I suspect people have ulterior motives for wanting to be around me. For the most part I've been proven right.

I can be a very difficult person to get to know. I seem open, but I'm not. Not really. My body language screams f@#$ off. I usually turn down offers to hang out in groups because I don't typically feel safe in groups. It makes me seem distant. I suppose I am. I try very hard to keep what I'm feeling to myself if it's an emotion that is typically qualified as "weak". I know it's not weak to be afraid or sad. But those emotions are easily exploited and I don't like giving people the opportunity. My unnamed professor once called me a marshmallow. She sees through the bluster and I'm okay with that. I trust her, I feel safe with her. I am a marshmallow but only to a precious few.

Why am I saying all of this?

Because I don't usually have a positive opinion of people and that's not right.

I've been having a hard time lately. There's a lot going on and I'm stressed. I would turn to my friends but as you can probably imagine, I don't have a lot of friends (by choice) that I really depend on. As my luck would have it, they all presently live out of town. So, when I see them online, I don't care where I am or what I'm doing. I talk to them.

I was talking to Veronica today. For the most part it was just chit chat. She never said anything about what was waiting for me at home. Yes, I was chatting in class! Sue me! Anyway, I got home and my dad informed me that I had a package. I hadn't ordered anything online and I'm not expecting any packages until March. Confused. Turns out Veronica had sent me a care package. She bought me two books, she sent along some chocolate and also wrote me a note telling me to take some time to myself and smile. She sent me all of that stuff for no other reason than to cheer me up. Overwhelmed? Yeah, I was. In a good way.

I forget too often that there are good people out there. I forget that there are people I can trust and have faith in. I'll never get tired of being reminded.

Lauren.

The Frog Princess

2012-01-22T23:36:00.002-05:00

Okay, something weird happened today.

When I was a little girl (I didn't ask my mother what I'd be, I was afraid of what she'd answer) we used to watch the Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday. We'd all sit down together, my parents, my sister and of course me. I don't know when Disney stopped being wonderful or airing family movies, but he did. I guess CTV or CBC has taken that up again in the last few years. Maybe they never stopped and I just stopped paying attention... Either way, there was a family movie time on TV and I sat with my parents to watch the movie. And yes, it was Disney. The Frog Princess to be more exact.

My dad had just finished watching 2012. The remote was closest to me so I picked it up and started looking for a new show. I noticed that the Frog Princess was on. I was curious about it, I hadn't seen it before and to be honest, I kind of miss the old school Disney animation. Not to mention all the hype over the first ever black Disney princess. To my immense surprise, my parents were on board. I believe their exact words were along these lines:

Dad: Huh, yeah, I'll give that a try. (Lauren's jaw drops)

Mom: Okay. (Lauren's jaw hits the floor)

My mom hates cartoons (I think she may have had a traumatic experience?) so getting an 'okay' out of her is pretty much like being told I've won a million dollars.

The movie progressed. There were moments when I was pretty sure I would have been a bit scared as a child. Then again, there were a ton of moments when all three of us were laughing out loud for an extended period of time. Granted, I was laughing more than my parents, but they joined in when the frog catchers were beating the crap out of each other. They also laughed pretty hard when the crazy bayou voodoo lady grabbed her walking stick... it was actually a snake.

Overall, I think it was a pretty cute movie. I liked the message, very fitting for a new generation of Disney Princesses. The Princess in this movie isn't a princess at all. She's a waitress who works two jobs so that she'll be able to buy and run her own restaurant (her dream). She's taught that wishing on stars is okay, but you have to do the work too. At the same time, she learns that work isn't everything.

Th standard Disney complaints still apply. The women are physically impossible representations of women. At the end, the heroine marries the Prince who does help her achieve her dream. At least in this one, the princess who works is the one who 'gets it all'. The bratty princess, while being far from evil, doesn't get the classic 'happily ever after'. What I liked though is that you see that the Prince is only helping her achieve her dream instead of achieving it for her. Her work does pay off. My personal issue with this movie is more a plot point. I have no idea what was up the villain's butt. There wasn't a whole lot of detail as to why he was evil. Moreover, the villain's sidekick kind of... disappears. Then again, I watched this on TV so that might have been edited out for time or content purposes.

I think we all liked it. So there you go. Parents, you will not want to kill yourselves watching this one with your kids.

Lauren.

Lessons from Bad Movies

2012-01-21T22:56:00.000-05:00

My parents (I suspect my father more than my mother) are Clint Eastwood fans. I think we have almost every movie Clint Eastwood has ever acted in. Since I'm not really that big a fan, I haven't seen most of them. Today I got to see one. I wasn't really impressed. What Clint Eastwood movie did they dig out? The Eiger Sanction.

So, what's this movie about? Well, Clint Eastwood is part of some covert agency. He gets hauled out of retirement and given a mission. He has to kill the man who killed their man. This man was on a team of climbers planning to go up the Eiger in Switzerland. Realizing that he is not in shape to climb the mountain that nearly killed him twice, Clint Eastwood goes off to some desert resort to train with his old friend.

What did I learn from this movie?

1) When you've completed an insane uphill jog/hike with a backpack filled with supplies, you will require incentive to climb a vertical 30 foot rock face. You only have the clothes on your back and the items in your bag. For the purposes of this conversation, let's imagine that those items include a first aid kit, rope, a few power bars and some water. How do you motivate yourself to climb the rock face, knowing that you're exhausted and still have to hike/jog all the way back down to the resort? Give up? It's really quite simple.

You wait for your twenty year old guide to magically appear at the top of the rock face and disregard her hand gestures signalling that she wants you to climb up to her. Naturally, she will take off her shirt (she was running braless, because running braless is both logical and comfortable). Her above average sized breasts will provide you with the incentive to go forth! Just keep in mind, she may put her shirt back on and mysteriously disappear into the trees. You won't question her disappearance too much, after all, she is Native American. Yup, there were racist comments too! If he was too tired to climb the cliff before seeing her boobs, where was he planning on getting the energy to do anything with them? It's a valid question.

2) When a guy arrives at the resort fitting every gay stereotype imaginable, he's bad news. You're not afraid of the obviously gay guy sporting some patterned shirt with white shorts, a ton of jewellery, a tiny moustache, drinking a "dyke"erie and pawning his little dog conveniently named Faggot off on some barely dressed pool hooker? I wouldn't be either. But, you must be weary of him. He's the one who's going to entice your topless guide into attacking you. And if that's not enough, he travels with a prize winning boxer who wears really tight shirts. You'll be able to kill them both later.

3) When you finally get to the mountain you were supposed to be climbing, your best friend, the guy you were training with back in the desert, tells you that he's the bad guy and that your topless guide is his daughter! Awkward! You'll decide not to kill him as you were instructed because his reasons were good. You on the other hand, will nearly die again, climbing the stupid mountain and no, you won't make it to the top.

4) You can call a girl a bunch of racial slurs and then call her a hooker at the beginning of the movie but she'll come back to you by the end. She'll even book you a flight home and stay with you. As it turns out, her mission truly wasn't about seducing you. She does have feelings for you. What luck! You have feelings for her! And even better, she's young too!

I think Clint Eastwood has been making better movie choices since then... maybe. I'm not sure. He also directed that one. It was one of his earlier works... That can be the excuse. Just so you know, I'm leaving out the mysterious albino Mr. Dragon... that was a fun character. Don't think I'll be watching this movie again.

Lauren.

Weird Comparisons

2012-01-20T22:18:00.000-05:00

I'm really tired. Woke up early today. I don't know why. Just couldn't sleep anymore.

Otherwise, I have to say that today was much better.

For instance, according to one of my professors: "Children are like hotdogs, when they're done, they're done." None of us had any idea what that had to do with anything. I still don't get the comparison. It was good for a laugh though. Personally, I like my hotdogs a little burnt. I don't think we're supposed to let children burn...

I also played Mario Kart with my sister. We're very competitive and the things she would come out with were quite funny. She was threatening dismemberment, boiling, pushing, flattening, what she's calling 'self-canibalism' (forcing the imaginary characters to eat their own intestines).... She's a lovely person, really.

AND! I can't discount the fact that I got a ride to and from school. Why is this such a wonderful thing? Because it was -35 here. I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy.

In any case, the weekend is here. I am going to relax, I'm going to sleep and I'm going to try getting ahead in my homework. Pft to the last but it's always nice to have goals.

Lauren.

I'm Sorry

2012-01-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

I don't mean to be setting up a horribly depressing theme to my blog. I always thought of it as a relatively happy place. I started blogging with the intention of finding the silver lining in every day. I think for the most part, up until this year, I accomplished that. I'm failing miserably right now, I know. I'm just having a really hard time sitting down and thinking of positive things to say.

I only broke down crying seven times today?
I didn't cry for five hours straight?
I managed to laugh a genuine laugh?

Kind of backwards positive events... positive for negatives.

This might sound silly coming from a very mature, intelligent young woman, but losing Meeko, my cat, feels like I'm losing my best friend. And not peacefully or quickly and not with words of goodbye or understanding. I know, he's cat. I know that he wouldn't have spent the rest of my life with me, I just... I don't want to lose him now.

I'm afraid of people. People have hurt me... badly. Meeko's never hurt me. He always greeted me at the door, he sat with me while I wrote, he kept me company when I didn't get invited to go places or when I was too afraid to go places. He sat with me when I read and he always seemed to know when to pop up when I needed comfort. He'd make me laugh and he warmed up my feet. I don't know why but he always curled up near my feet. Most importantly, he let me be vulnerable and soft and I don't get to be like that with people. They always look at me funny or make some comment that makes me uncomfortable. But with Meeko, it was okay. And now I have a hard time looking at him. I'm just waiting for the day I'll come home and he'll be gone. Imagining euthanizing him makes me want to throw up.

I feel lost as it is...

Overly dramatic... maybe. Crazy cat lady... probably. I just don't want to lose my friend. I feel as though the fact that he's a feline is irrelevant.

And now you know where all the negative is coming from. Because I am atrocious at letting go of anything, let alone the very few people/pets/things I love.

I hope you'll all forgive me.

Lauren.

With an Ugh and a Blah and a Ha?

2012-01-18T21:56:00.000-05:00

Not a good day. Not in the least.

I woke up and my shoulders were killing me. I don't recall what I did to incur the wrath of the shoulder gods, but it must have been bad. After that I decided that I was not going to school. After getting 13cm of snow, I had no intention of wading across unploughed sidewalks. My mom let me have the car so I ended up going to school. Got to love my resolve.

Thankfully, the roads weren't that bad and I made it home alright. This is the good part of my day. I wasn't home more than two hours when my dad announced that the vet called. Apparently the vets don't know what's wrong with Meeko and therefore, they can't treat him anymore, which has led them to believe that whatever he does have will not end well. I spent the remainder of the day crying. I may be dehydrated.

As of now, I'm watching Are You There, Chelsea? I don't know if it's as funny as I currently think it is or if it's stress, but right now, it's friggin' funny. The roommate makes the show. She's actually kind of reminding me of one of my friends... The debate over whether or not I truly find this show funny will have to be settled later. When my emotions go back to normal... ish.

Lauren.

Mixed Bag (No Candy)

2012-01-17T23:35:00.001-05:00

Probably should have taken that mental health day I was talking about yesterday.

Not that today was a bad day. If I had to classify today, it would probably be as a mixed bag.

My first class was bleh, but that's not a real surprise. I think there might be a Dementor hiding in the ceiling of that classroom. I have two classes there, I'm in there four times a week and I don't usually enjoy that time.

My second and third classes were infinitely better. I have two professors for one of those classes and today, the one who doesn't usually teach us, did. She's very energetic and funny and she's prepared with things for us to actually look at. Most of the time we don't have to take notes. We literally just have to sit there and listen. I prefer her teaching style. Then again, I could be biased. I've known her quite a while and I happen to have gone to school with her daughter. I rather liked her daughter. Platonically. I really don't need that kind of awkward. Although... that would be the kind of thing that would happen to me.

In my third class, my professor invited a speaker to come to class. I thought she was really interesting. Although, once again, I'm going to have to acknowledge a bias. Let's just say I wasn't only interested in what she was saying. I'm a sucker for a girl who can quote constitutional law! I'm kidding. Sort of. It's kind of cool. I'm a history nerd. Don't judge me.

Either way, she eventually had us break up into groups (mistakenly believing that we don't do that often in teacher's college) and gave us an issue related to education. We were to debate the cases she presented. The cases were real. My group had to argue whether or not a math teacher who publicly denied the Holocaust but never spoke of his beliefs in class should be prevented from teaching. We ended up saying that it was his right to say whatever he pleased (no matter how misguided) outside the classroom, so long as it didn't affect the learning environment. As it turns out, it did affect the classroom environment and he was fired. How one can deny the Holocaust is beyond my imagination, but there you go.

Finally, it was time to go home. Yeah, easier said than done. We're being hit with about 20cm of snow and it's really windy. Little tornadoes of snow keep cropping up. You can hear the wind trying to take down your house. The highway was closed. Good times. Oh, and it's cold. Sorry, forgot about that. Thankfully, God invented blankets.

The last part of my day was... surprising. Thanks to Glee (an aside to Jane Lynch and Dot Marie Jones, a lovely homage to those very unusual royal wedding hats) and about 70 000 other conversations had with friends, I discovered something about myself that I was not expecting.

Was it just me or was this episode particularly English?

That doesn't happen to me very often anymore. I'm not really thrilled about it at the moment. As for Glee, the word Rachel is looking for is: NO! (exclamation mark optional). WTF?!?! FABERRY SHIPPERS UNITE! THIS CANNOT STAND MUCH LESS GENUFLECT! Uh, while I'm on the topic of Quinn, where was she in this episode? I know where she should have been... auditorium, steel toe boots, behind Finn, kicking motion. Random note, loved Becky's inside voice. Very sophisticated.

Well, that's it for me. I'm off to ponder.

Lauren.

Mental Health Day

2012-01-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

I don't know what to talk about today. I wasn't really... all there. I went to my classes, sat through them, listened occasionally, but mostly watched the clock. I don't know what's gotten into me, but I'm just uninterested in everything. Today for instance, I just wanted to lounge and read. I kind of makes me smile (inside) that when I feel like crap, when I'm unhappy, all I really need is a comfy chair, a blanket and a book and everything just goes away. I believe that's what the infamous "they" call a mental health day. I think I could use one... It's strange. I don't usually get the academic blahs (I use the term academic loosely) until mid February.

Lauren.

Slush War

2012-01-15T23:10:00.000-05:00

I hate slush. Not the kind that you eat, that stuff is kind of delicious for being crushed ice and syrup. I'm talking about the crap that accumulates under your car.

I had to get to a meeting today so I asked my parents if I could borrow my mom's car. They agreed. About twenty minutes before the meeting was to start, I pulled on my coat, my boots and grabbed my purse. I unlocked the car, adjusted the mirrors and left.

I drove down the road until I got to the ramp that would get me on the highway. That's when I first heard it. A strange crunching sound. I didn't think much of it given that the ramp was still snow covered. Snow frequently crunches under tires. I got onto the highway and drove for a few minutes before approaching my turn. I signalled, waited for two transports to pass and turned. Again, I heard the crunch. I was about five minutes from school so I decided that I would deal with it then. The thing about this road is that it's pretty much the stereotypical country road. Ruts, washboarding, bumps, potholes, you name it, it's there. Rather than fixing these problems, our ever intelligent city council decided that putting up warning signs was sufficient... but I'm not going there. When I got to the first chasm, I heard something hitting, then scraping against the asphalt. Not a sound you want to hear normally. I heard it a few more times. When I completed the required left, right and left turn, the crunching returned. I parked and got out of the car.

I discovered two things.

1) I'd run into the snowbank (Oops...)
2) There was so much slush around the wheels that there was practically no room for the tire to move.

What to do? What to do? Well, duh. I proceeded to kick the crap out of my car. I imagine it looked pretty funny. No only was there a ton of slush on each wheel, it was frozen there so I was really kicking. I hacked at it with the underside of my foot. When that didn't work, I bashed at it with my heel. I tried numerous angles. It took a couple of minutes, but it worked. Except on the front right tire. I kicked with arms flailing and that shit was not moving. I gave up and went to my meeting.

Not my car, but imagine that around all the tires. How I didn't notice before is a mystery.

About an hour later, I returned more determined. I think the sun helped out a bit. This time I kicked higher up with the intention of removing what I could and leaving the rest. As it turned out, this was a brilliant strategy. I got it all! Given how huge this clump was, I took it out from under the car.

I was ready to go and basking in the glow of my minor success. I started backing up but found that I was stuck. I gave it more gas and slowly crushed the slush heap that had caused me so many problems. I made sure to look at my parking space, now littered with heaps of brown, sandy, ice, before leaving I had to laugh at the amount there was. It was ridiculous.

The drive home was silent. Success! My feet hurt. Fail!

Lauren.

The Hair Product Question

2012-01-15T00:06:00.000-05:00

I have a question. I haven't written about a question in a while so here it is: What is with hairdressers and product?

I was up at the crack of dawn today (okay, definitely not the crack, but some time shortly thereafter) because my mom and aunt decided to book me another hair appointment. They get their hair done at a salon about forty five minutes outside of town. We got there sometime around 9:30ish and by the time their stylist had finished the chemistry experiment that is hair colour, it was about 10:00. While my relatives were curing in the back, I got to hop in the chair for a trim. I don't think he took off much more than an inch this time.

Either way, he put some spray crap in my hair that is supposed to do 15 different jobs. Kind of impressive. I only ever managed to do four jobs at a time and I'm not in mist form. Then he put white crap in my hair that looked like aerosol snow. Very appealing. He scrunched my hair and brushed it and chucked it this way and that with his comb. More crap went into my hair. I don't know what it was supposed to do, but it disappeared into the rapidly forming rat's nest on my head. I mean, what hair duties could have been neglected by that point? Fifteen jobs were being accomplished by the misty stuff, I'm almost positive the aerosol snow was for volume. WHAT ELSE IS THERE!?

My hair is extremely curly. Like the kind of curly people have to pay for. All I have to do is let it air dry and I can have Shirley Temple ringlets. I'm not even exaggerating. As soon as he cuts a piece of my hair off, it bounces into a perfect circle before it hits the floor. Imagine what my hair does when a defuser is applied to it. When he finished defusing, I looked in the mirror and the first thing I thought was "Good God don't let him be finished." He wasn't. He twisted some of my hair back and started bobby-pinning. He was explaining his pinning procedure as he went. Because I'm an ass, I said :"So you can use those to do more than unlock doors! Fascinating!" Oddly enough, I don't think he understood that I was kidding and continued to explain that while they were good for opening doors, they were excellent for pinning hair back and also for hurting people. I paid more attention to the latter.

When he was done, I thought a bird would come flying at me with a sign reading "Home Sweet Home". Before my avian friends could move in however, the stylist fumigated with about a gallon of hairspray. Now not only did my hair look sort of nest-like, it had the texture of twigs. Thank goodness there are no smoking laws. I may not have lived otherwise...

The way he styled it was a bit much for me. My aunt and mom told me it looked nice though. You probably won't be able to envision that given my descriptions. It wasn't actually bad, just... not really my taste. The cut is fine though.

After all that, the first thing I did when I got home was shower. My hair felt gross. Like foreign, dry, twiggy, crunchy, curly, brown stuff that just happened to be attached to my head. I was relieved to see it (and feel it go) back to normal.

So, I ask, what is up with all the product? I know they're trying to sell it, but I think it made my head more itchy than anything else. That's not really an enticing factor. Is there a minimum one tonne of product utilization rule? Or, is it more personal? He knows I'm lazy... he probably knew I'd be itching (literally as it turned out) to redo my hair. Was all the product his attempt at stopping me? I mean really, does anyone like having that much junk in their hair? Would anyone really take the time to do that daily? Not that I would know, but it mustn't be very romantic to run your fingers through hair that audibly crunches.

These are my question.

Also, a much better day on the Meeko front. The poor guy had to go back to the vet. They did sedate him, they did a scope thing all the way to his lungs and they couldn't find anything. So, there is something, but we don't know what. If they can't see it and his habits haven't changed aside from the sniffling, I don't think it can be that bad. We're hoping his snuffliness clears up with antibiotics. Regardless, I'm relieved.

Lauren.

Shitty Day

2012-01-13T21:25:00.000-05:00

Can't say that today was an especially good day.

Just like every other Friday, I started school at 8:30. The downside, aside from being tired, is that my professor decided to play Loreena McKennitt to demonstrate how poetry and music go together. I like Loreena McKennit but listening to her, with the lights off, while tired, not a great idea.

After another two fantastic hours of class, I had to walk home. It was windy and really freaking cold. I almost slipped a fell five times. Arm flailing helps with maintaining balance. It does little to maintain dignity. Then again, I suppose my dignity would suffer a lot more if I actually fell.

My ass finally started to unthaw by the time my dad came home about two hours later. Meeko's been having a hard time breathing lately. He sounds like he's trying to breathe through a clogged straw. It's been particularly bad the last few days so we finally took him back to the vet. Visit number 4. About 500$ later, Meeko was at last sort of diagnosed. It's either a tumour in his larynx or he has some kind of paralysis in the area of his larynx. Regardless of what it is, there's pretty much nothing to be done. He's relatively okay, aside from sounding atrocious and the super positive diagnosis. So, as you can imagine, great cap to the day. He was given an anti-inflamatory. We're supposed to wait until tomorrow to see if it helped. If it hasn't, the vet wants to sedate him and take a closer look.

Obviously, I'm most upset about Meeko. Upset probably isn't the best word, but it's the word that will keep me from losing it again.

Yup, fan-friggin'-tastic day.

Lauren.

Read to Me Computer!

2012-01-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

My Spec Ed class is no more. I am saddened. I now have to attend Psychology of Education or something along those lines. During our first class, my new prof let us play with text to speech software. One of the programs was Say It Save It. To be honest, I don't really understand why one would use this program. It doesn't seem to be very flexible. Then again, it's probably cheaper than Kurzweil.

This program is ridiculously easy to use. It's a matter of copying and pasting text into it. Therein lies its inflexibility. At the same time, and I have no idea why, but they have a greater variety of voices. Sure there was Alex and Victoria and that other guy who's always bopping around, but they also had voices Kurzweil didn't. I can't imagine why a program like Kurzweil would omit these voices! Perhaps you can enlighten me.

The following recordings were created using Say It Save It. The text comes from an interview that my friend wrote up for one of her school projects. I don't know why, but she thought I was interesting.

Version 1: Cello

Version 2: Good News

Version 3: Bad News

So, what's the deal Kurzweil? Too busy being all educational and stuff?

If I was entertained, I'm pretty sure a teenager or elementary kid would find this hilarious. Begging the question: Why?

This is what I did to amuse myself today. Don't judge me. Judge B.Ed. Besides, you know you were always wondering what it would be like to have Death read like this for you.

Lauren.

Circle Back on Berry

2012-01-12T01:00:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting experience today. I don't know if it will be of any interest to you, but for me, it was interesting. After school, I froze my ass off (unfortunately not literally) waiting for a bus. When it at last arrived, I wound up sitting with a girl from my history class. We've had classes together throughout the last few years but we've never really spoken until this year. Ah, the nature of university classes!

Anyway, she asked me what I was doing with the rest of my day. I told her I only had to mail my grad school applications. Well, that was a conversation starter! I admit, it surprises me now when people don't know that I write. I'm so used to people just somehow knowing. Beside the point. She started asking me question after question and the only thing I could think of was something Angela said to me a few years ago when we got onto the topic of my writing. "I know you love it, your eyes light up." I knew my eyes must have been lit up.

Among all the other crazy things I've been thinking and feeling this year, I haven't felt a whole lot of 'lighting up' if you will. I got off the bus at my stop, walked across the parking lot of certain death, survived and mailed off my application. As I walked home, I was listening to Glee on my new MP3 player (may I keep this one out of the washing machine). I don't know how to say this without sounding like a complete ass, but as I was listening to Lea Michele belting out "Get it Right", I couldn't help but feel like I don't belong here. It's actually a feeling I've had for at least a year now... have you ever felt... too big for where you are? Like you not only want more but need it, crave it to the point that you can actually feel a hungry ache in your chest? It's a hard feeling to put aside and it makes so many of my daily activities feel utterly pointless. Don't get me wrong, I love my hometown. I've lived here 22 years. It's just, there's nothing here that I want. I feel like my hometown is my grandpa sweater. It's comfy, it's warm, it always smells really good for some bizarre reason, but it doesn't really fit anymore. It's stretched in places, I've grown (in places... not the good places either)...

All of this led me to thinking about Rachel Berry and why I love her but some of my family members can't stand her. I need to get out of here, I need to unleash my voice (though mine will be on paper to spare the world another tragedy), when it comes to my talent, I'm driven to the point of being single minded. I trust you see the parallels. My family on the other hand are all content here. They all have ties. They all have what they want and need. Their drive doesn't have to take them away. Part of me envies that. I guess what it comes down to though is that they can't stand Rachel because they don't understand what it's like.

I get told I don't understand a lot of things (usually people related things), but if there's one thing I do understand it's wanting more and needing it for yourself. My parents still don't understand why I need to do this. They keep suggesting programs in town that have no bearing on what I want to do, thinking I'm just being stubborn. They make it into a personal issue, me escaping them. They make it into a financial issue, me throwing around money I could spend here. It's neither and no matter how I explain it, they don't seem to get it.

Is it the curse of the driven to not be understood? To be different? To be lonely but always able to push that sentiment aside for the sake of "all in good time".

See what I mean, lots of stuff going on in my head these days. And for some reason, it's circling back on Glee. I may need some... how did Kaley Cuoco put it... Gleehab?

Lauren.

Confidence?

2012-01-10T23:58:00.000-05:00

I will say that today wasn't the greatest day. I find myself feeling... annoyed. Annoyed with people, annoyed with having to be certain places, annoyed with having to learn certain things. Just plain ol' annoyed in other words. I haven't been able to determine a logical answer for my irritation yet. Hopefully it goes away soon because being annoyed all day makes being at school all day that much more difficult.

In other news, my last grad school application will be leaving my possession at some point tomorrow. I probably said that already but I'm serious now. It's sealed up and hopefully it's done right. I stopped in to speak to one of the professors who wrote me a recommendation. She's so sure I'll get in. And she's being sincere. I wish I'd asked her why she was so sure. Not for the sake of fishing for compliments, but because it really didn't sound like the hopeful "you'll get in, don't worry about it," that's just supposed to be comforting. She's confident. I wish I was that confident. Am I confident in my ability? Yes. Am I confident that I submitted good work? Yes. Am I confident that I could do it? Yes. None of that is the problem. Am I confident that I'm among the top twelve? Not so much, no.

Anyway, excited to be rid of everything. Then I can stop thinking about it and worrying about it until of course I get my letters in March.

Unfortunately that's all I've got for today. Forgive me.

If only I had confidence in sunshine, rain and that spring would come again... (Sound of Music Reference)

Lauren.

My Four Weddings

2012-01-10T00:28:00.000-05:00

For someone who's never dated, I've been proposed to a lot. Yeah, that seems weird to me too. Thus far I've had four weddings planned out for me. I'm not fond of any of them and I hope to God none of them come to be. For anyone, let alone myself! I'm not the little girl who had her wedding planned by age six, but I definitely think I can do better than this.

Naked Beach Wedding. Yup, you read that right. I don't know how this came up, but apparently that's how my former best friend wanted to marry me. Naked, on a beach. I hope we were standing and not sitting. There are places I do not want to have sand. This wedding is not the reason she's my former best friend. Actually, I think this is the most appealing of the options I've been presented with.

Shotgun Wedding. No I'm not pregnant, the theme is shotguns. Our wedding song will be played on the banjo. I don't want to describe much more but there will be moonshine served in jugs marked XX. Another friend from high school being funny. God I hope she was being funny.

Shrek/Pirates of the Caribbean Theme Wedding. I have no clue how those two things came to be mashed together. The friend who suggested it was probably stoned at the time. Either way, she was dead set on being Jack Sparrow. I on the other hand would wear acid washed jeans with a tear in the ass and ride off in a "rapist van". How low my standards are...

The Naked, Drunken, 24 Hour, Star Wars Wedding. We came up with this one tonight at the Pride meeting. I think we were all a bit stressed. Apparently the marriage is only to last 24 hours (inspired by Kim Kardashian), we're to be drunk out of our minds, the venue is a strip club in town and naturally, we're naked. I was unsure how Star Wars fit in but my random fiancee has proclaimed that we will simply wear helmets. Classy and awkward. I would have to be drunk out of my mind.

See what I mean. I think I can do better. Also, is it just me or is the naked beach wedding the best option. I mean, it can still be nice... just... naked. I don't remember why I'm supposed to be naked. I think it's one of those things that simply is. Just like how I clearly need better friends.

For the most part, I actually don't understand weddings. I understand the purpose, it's not rocket science, but I don't understand having a bunch of people meet you here to stare at you, then split up to meet you there and eat and stare at you some more. It's not like you get the time to talk to half of them. You probably won't even remember who was there or not unless they were a part of your wedding party. I assume an absence would be noticeable there. I've seen five of my cousins get married and they've all gone the big wedding route. They were nice, but I just don't get it.

I suppose I'm a simple girl. The point of the whole thing to me is being with the person you love. Who cares about everyone else. I'd be quite happy being married in front of the smallest number of people possible then going out to a nice dinner where I'd actually talk to my guests.

Think I'd win the honeymoon?

Lauren.

Growing my TV Fellowship

2012-01-08T23:49:00.000-05:00

I did nothing today. I watched a random movie with Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. I'd never heard of it before and apparently there was a reason for that. I spent some time reading, next to no time doing homework and I read. Truth is, I've been feeling... broody for the last week or so and well, I'm not sure why. I'll eventually brood myself out and be back to my version of normal.

Other than that, I watched Once Upon a Time. The new trend in TV is apparently fairytales. At least the show is good. I'm very much enjoying their interpretations of the fairytales. I wish I could write for a show like that. God, that would be fun.

I've slowly been getting my family interested. Initially, it was just me, by myself in the living room on Sunday nights. I forget why, but my dad plopped down in the chair next to mine one Sunday. It took a while to explain who was who and that there was another world working alongside ours and a curse but he seems to be onboard now. It's not at all his kind of show. It's very twisty and full of questions and cliffhangers. It's lacking in Arnold-like explosions and gun fire. But given that he's been faithfully watching with me since that strange night, I take it that he's enjoying it. Tonight, thanks to the Good Wife being absent, I also got my mom watching. My mom catches on faster so there was much less explaining to do. She was thrown for a loop when I told her that Emma was Mary-Marguerite's (I actually had a friend named Mary-Marguerite) daughter. They look to be about the same age. It's an interesting twist in the story. I don't know what she thought of it. She seemed entertained. Either way, I have one viewing partner. I'm happy for that.

Tonight's episode tackled the story of Rumplestiltskin. He's probably one of the more interesting characters on the show. He's self serving which makes him neither a bad guy nor a good guy all of the time. More often than not he's the bad guy. Or at least appears to be. He's scheming! How am I supposed to know what he's planning? Next week, they tackle Hansel and Gretel. Not that fairytales are normal, but if memory serves, that's a particularly weird one. Meh, something to look forward to while I impatiently wait for March.

Before I leave, I wish to impart a final message, a warning if you will. Should you ever find yourself in an enchanted area, DON'T EAT THE DAMN FOOD! It'll get you every time. Why do they always eat the food? They must know something bad is going to happen... how can you not?

And on that random note, away with me.

Lauren.

Common Interests

2012-01-07T23:02:00.000-05:00

Today was fantastically uneventful. Even so, that didn't stop me from making a new discovery. I went over to my godmother's today with my parents. My cousin (G), his wife (D) and their daughter were visiting from Newmarket. As one of the youngest members of my extended family (on both sides) I never really got to be around young children much. I was the young children. It's only now, with my cousins having children, that I'm getting the opportunity. Now, I've talked about babies finding me hilarious. Have I talked about me finding babies hilarious?

Picture it. Sicily. I'm kidding. I definitely do not live in Sicily. If I did, I doubt I'd be staring at a curtain of snow. Nevertheless, picture it, a baby laughing at me while I'm laughing my face off at a baby. The other adults in the room? Yeah, they're laughing at us. So, lots of people laughing, none of them for the same reason.

Baby Laughing:

I was sitting next to my cousin's wife and she was holding her daughter. She knows I'm uncomfortable holding her daughter so she sits really close so that she'll climb all over me and I won't have a choice. It's quite clever. She also knows I'm too lazy and polite to move. Anyway, her daughter was sitting on her leg, but her feet were hanging over onto my leg. I was told she liked to high five, so I raised my hand. My cousin's wife grabbed her daughter's hand and started high fiving me. Her daughter was giggling. And then, I just reached forward, palmed her head and sing-songed "face plant!". The baby just burst out laughing for about five minutes. I was right behind her and so was my cousin's wife. It was so random.

Me Laughing:

My cousin's wife, we're going to call her... D, had her daughter in her arms and was pretending to eat her neck. She was claiming to be a vampire. I asked her if she was a Twilight vampire. She said she was a True Blood vampire. I laughed and told her that I didn't know the difference. Neither did she. Either way, the vampire thing had her daughter laughing so all was good. A while later, her daughter marches up to the couch we're sitting on and tries very determinedly to eat D's foot. She was climbing on the couch, zeroed in on her foot, grabbing at it and pulling it to her mouth. Meanwhile, D is laughing and trying to pull away without kicking anyone (because I'm sitting so close... HA! Her plan backfired!). I took that moment to laugh at her struggling and tell her that her daughter was only following the example she'd set with the whole vampire thing.

Given what I witnessed today, I do not want to see this kid at sixteen when she really wants something. If that's how she goes after a sock when she's not even one, it's going to be hell trying to say: "No, you can't have the car"; or worse yet: "No you can't go on a date with that boy/girl". She was even more determined in going after D's cellphone. Kids and their technology...

Both Laughing:

One of my other aunt's was present. She decided that she'd like some pictures so she rans to get her phone. The second the camera was pointed at my cousin's daughter, she perked up, stared straight at it and smiled her million dollar smile. She was laughing and playing around, always looking at the camera. I was giggling at that point. When she raised her hand and placed it under her chin and started shifting her weight from foot to food to get different poses, I cracked up. There was no one around prompting her or anything, she just started posing all on her own. The more pictures my aunt took, the more the baby was laughing and moving around and smiling. The more she posed, the more we were laughing. She's cute and she absolutely knows it.

Lots of laughing today. Oh, my discovery! Children and I have a common interest in one another. We each find the other hysterical.

Lauren.

Where's that Falling Shoe?

2012-01-06T22:39:00.000-05:00

You know when you have a good day but it's weird at the same time? A weirdly good day? No? A day you don't quite know what to make of? That's the kind of day I had.

It started off normally, with me being half asleep in "how to teach English" class. It's an eight thirty class... it's hard. Irony of all ironies, the first thing my prof decides to cover upon getting back from placement is poetry. I'm so glad I just finished teaching a poetry unit. I laughed. Actually laughed, out loud, in class. I think most people assumed it was a stress outburst caused by 8:30. The next thing that made me giggle was when my prof handed out a sheet with steps for how to read poetry. On my very first placement months ago, I wrote a similar sheet (mine was more aesthetically pleasing). The reason I wanted to laugh? I pulled my steps out of my brain with no guidance. I read my profs list and a number of steps were the same. I know it's old school but BOOYA! She said something about presenting it to the class next week. I revel in the validation! (I also kind of hope she forgets about it entirely.)

After that I went off to my new spec ed class. I say new because my former prof is now on sabbatical. I miss his stories already. Although, the new prof seems interesting enough. This may not come out the way I mean it to, but I'm so glad I don't have a learning disability where reading is concerned. She had us trying out Kurzweil and while it seems like an excellent, intelligently designed program, it takes some getting used to. In case you don't know, Kurzweil is a computer program that... well, it's a really tricked out text reader. It can read digital texts aloud (for students who have difficulty with reading and comprehension) and it can read and anticipate text as you write it (for students who have difficulty writing clearly or spelling). I will admit to having a great deal of fun making my text reader read about 340 words a minute.

Where does my day get really weird? Remember the seminar thing I was talking about? I'm still trying not to get excited about it, but my partner for this project of pure awesomness and I outlined the whole thing today. We hope to have the majority of our material together by the end of next week so we can get everything tightened up before we bring it to the Dean of Education. She seems rather lovely though I've only really met her once. Her shoes always match her top exactly. That might sound like a weird thing to notice, but she wore a bright red coat (really nice coat) and she had bright red high heels. Today when I saw her, she was wearing a neon-ish green shirt and was wearing neon-ish green high heels. I'm kind of curious about where she's getting these shoes... maybe she's a cobbler in her spare time.

That's not the truly weird thing though. Our current Pride organization was emailed by a local high school. Basically, they wanted to start a GSA. It would be the first school in our area to have one. I immediately volunteered to go in but was turned down. There were some scheduling conflicts. The director of Pride went instead. Tonight, I got a call asking if I'd like to take over the GSA.

Kind of a perfect image isn't it? Wish I'd thought of it.

Is there such a thing as too many good things happening to a person in a day? Particularly when that person is actually known for her hilariously bad luck. I mean, speaking of shoes, when's the other one going to drop? And what colour will it be?

Lauren.

A Nap a Day

2012-01-05T18:00:00.001-05:00

Today was quiet and rather boring. I wound up having a four hour break between classes and had nothing to do. I answered some emails, I played some games, I wrote a bit. I was not adequately equipped to handle a break of this length. Which brings me to today's topic.

HOW TO NAP IN A UNIVERSITY!

If you have a backpack, a coat and an MP3 player, you have all the materials you'll need.

Step 1: Evaluate.
Look around the room and find the ideal place to park yourself. I like corners where I can see everyone in the room. That way no one can sneak up behind me.

Step 2: Trust no one.
I trust no one. It's an issue I have but in this situation, I think it's also a question of common sense. I placed my backpack on the lounge couch with the pockets facing the back of the couch. No one's stealing my backpack or sneaking into it without waking me up. I was also holding my MP3 player but that was mostly so I wouldn't have to sleep on it.

Step 3: Blanket.
Use your coat as a blanket. Even if you aren't cold. I have a hard time falling asleep anywhere if I'm not warm. And when I wake up I'm glad I have a blanket because I'm usually cold.

Step 4: Volume.
Only turn your MP3 player up loud enough to make the voices of those around you indistinct. You aren't going to be able to drown them out without giving yourself a headache.

Step 5: Sleep
Focus on your music and go to sleep. Be prepared to glare when you wake up. You'll likely be surrounded by a bunch of education students bitching about their workload and talking about the best place to get drunk. (Okay, YOU probably won't... I on the other hand...)

I feel much more refreshed now.

The downer: I still have to wait another half hour before heading up to class. Why won't this day end? I just want to go home, get into my PJs and watch Grey's Anatomy. I'm curious to know if I've waited this long for it to be on only to be disappointed.

Speaking of TV, I find that Wednesday is generally a pretty crappy TV night. None of the shows I follow are ever on Wednesday nights. Last night I wound up watching Bomb Girls. It's a new series about the women who took to working in factories during WW2 making bullets and bombs.

I didn't really know what to expect. It ended up representing a number of different perspectives and prejudices of the 1940s. Of course there was the issue of sexism but they also explored class differences and how sexism applied in the working and upper classes. I also think they've set it up quite well to explore questions of sexuality and what it is to be a "proper woman". It isn't however only about women, which I was happy about. They demonstrated the father as the patriarch and the psychological and physical effects of WW1 on former soldiers. One of the characters working in the factory is Italian and the matron is out to get rid of him based on that fact. We find out that his father is in an internment camp because of his nationality. What I also found particularly interesting is how the matron is constantly referring to her girls as soldiers. Which I suppose they are. One of them has this horrible factory accident and the matron goes with her to the hospital and talks the doctor into performing a "non-priority" surgery because her girl is a soldier. It's pretty neat. I await part 2.

Ugh... what I'd give to be home right now.

Lauren.

Word of the Week: Seminar

2012-01-04T23:13:00.000-05:00

First assignment of 2012 is done. It wasn't especially difficult which begs the question, why did I wait until the last minute to do it? A concern for another day... Good ol' procrastination. It'll never let me down.

Aside from that, today was actually quite nice. This week, in spite of requiring me to be back at school, has been quite nice. I have plans. Big plans. I do love Quinn on SIM GM (most people I show this to do not show it the appreciation it deserves). The difference here is that I actually do have plans. Whether or not they come to fruition is another matter entirely. I'm trying not to get too excited because when I get excited about things, well, that's usually the kiss of death. Go figure that it doesn't actually involve a kiss. Suffice it to say, my favourite word this week is: SEMINAR.

Yeah, I didn't see that one coming either. Essentially, I've pitched the idea of hosting a seminar. One would be for education students. The other would be for anyone interested and if it works out, it would help support the online journal I'm running with... let's call her Prof R. She'll probably hate that, but I'm hoping that she's too busy with her other endeavours to read my blog. We'll see if it gets back to her. But back to the subject at hand. The education students' seminar is entering its planning stages so that one should happen. The other one is more an idea I spouted randomly that developed into a potential seminar. It would be really fun but again, we'll see. These are the things that make me happy now. God I'm weird. Or desperate. Okay, I'm both and so completely aware of it.

Another highlight of today was running into Angela, my former therapist. Well, I didn't run into her. I walked up to her and she heard me a mile away because the snow was crunching underfoot, but all of that is unimportant. I hadn't seen her since my graduation in May. That's a long time considering I saw her every two weeks for four years. The funny thing is, I was thinking about her last week. When I walked up to her today, the first thing she said to me was "I was thinking about you today!" Does this mean that "I think therefore I am" has larger implications than I originally imagined? Can I simply think and make things happen? Wait. Is that The Secret thing that Oprah was talking about a zillion years ago? Either way, we both thought it was funny. I'm now debating on whether or not to accept this as proof that the universe intentionally screws with me. I was glad for that chat though. Kind of nice to talk to her without having a box of tissue between us.

Alas, that is all for today. Long day ahead for tomorrow. Can't wait.

Lauren.

BEd's Back, Back Again

2012-01-04T00:36:00.000-05:00

I nearly forgot to blog today. Nearly.

My first day back at teacher's college... pretty much as expected. Everyone was chatty about their placements and the holidays. We haven't seen each other in about a month and half so there was a lot of news to go around. That's the weird part of being in a class with the same people. You get to know each other and actually develop an interest in their lives... I'm not used to that okay? BEd is its own universe. When I was doing my BA I didn't know the names of half the people in my class most of the time. Though I can remember where they sat. Explain that one to me...

Today began with CDE. Not my favourite class. It's a bit dry. Anyway, my cousin T sat with me. We should not sit together. We talk and giggle constantly. And when he starts laughing, he's doubled over laughing for about five minutes. Meanwhile, my face gets red and I cry. We're real discreet that way.

So here's my prof, teaching his lesson and he throws a close-up of what is clearly a cactus up on screen.
According to him, getting in to Oxford University would require and essay written based on an image like that one. Where did my mind immediately go?

"That would be an excellent form of birth control." Yup and I said it out loud too.

T just lost it. When the girl in front of him asked what the hell was so funny, he told her and she started laughing before saying he was awful. Turns out a guy another table over heard me and snorted. I always have to say these things when it's quietest. I made sure T knew that I didn't know what happened to me in my childhood that would make me associate a cactus with birth control. Freud would have a field day.

After that class we traipsed off to the theatre. All five sections had come together for a question and answer period regarding Native/Aboriginal (I'm unsure of the correct term) Education. Two former students were Skyped in from the Northwest Territories (which is in the actual north of Canada). Another teacher who works at the nearby reserve was able to attend in person. It was long, but it was interesting. All three speakers had interesting experiences to share. The part where we, the audience, got to ask questions was kind of entertaining. Some of the questions kind of... came out of the blue and made me do a double take.

As expected, I was getting tired of being around people by the time lunch rolled around. I hope I politely escaped the cafeteria. The classroom I was supposed to be in next wound up being empty so I hid in there for an hour. I managed to finish my last grad school application. So, if Guelph doesn't work out, I may still get Montreal. I've never been but what I do know, there's a lot of food. Lauren likes food. That and I wouldn't be opposed to meeting a nice French girl. Perhaps one who can cook food because while I can bake, my cooking skills are seriously lacking.

I'm going to stop now.

Lauren.

Freedom 11:59

2012-01-02T22:32:00.000-05:00

Well, tonight is my last night of freedom. Tomorrow, classes resume. That means I have to somehow fall asleep at a reasonable hour, get up early, walk to the bus stop and take the smelly, stupid bus. I'm most upset about the smelly, stupid bus. Unless of course there's a snow storm. Then I hate the evil, dangerous walk and love the smelly, stupid, probably safe, warm bus.

Mercifully, classes begin on a day that I do not have an eight thirty class. YAY! Because I would not be able to handle "how to teach English" first thing. That would've... That just would've been bad.

I've spent today, my last day of freedom, doing things that I will not freely be able to do once I get back to my rolly chair and pod. Yes, my rolly chair and my pod! A pod's a table by the way... as odd as some of the things I'm "learning" are, they aren't that alien. Actually, I kind of hope some rooms got changed because it's nauseating to be a in the same room over and over again. At least most of them have windows I can gaze longingly out of. Brave a blizzard or brave a CDE class... tough call. Do I have proper winter garments? Is there a Tim Hortons nearby where I can warm up? All questions that need to be answered before I make my choice.

Another act of mercy, the acts of mercy are raining down upon me, is that this week is only four days! Yeah long weekend! Good grief... I'm not even back yet and I'm wanting to leave. Guess a few weeks wasn't enough to change my attitude after all.

I'll try harder during our next break... in March. I am so glad this year is half over. At least I have a plan... sort of.

Lauren.

Results Are In!

2012-01-01T23:56:00.000-05:00

Okay, so about a million years ago (which we all know is a very exact date) I started a random contest between Kayley Cuoco and Mark Salling. Naturally, they knew nothing about it because I'm not acquainted with them. For some strange reason that I don't fully understand, Mark Salling intrigues me more than Kayley Cuoco... don't ask me why. So... he'd be my bestie over Kayley?

Anyway, I wanted to see who would be able to gain the most page views by the new year. It was convenient because I posted their separate blog entries days apart. Because that was convenient, something had to go astray.

I now share the results with you.

Yes, there it is, in chart form! So you know I'm not lying. At least I don't think I am. Math was never my strong suit. Yeah... Lord Voldemort/Ralph Fiennes randomly joined my party and nearly ruined everything! He definitely ruined things for Mark but with those results... Mark didn't stand a chance. I think this proves the Cuoco Effect!

So, hot blonde over, freaky evil wizard, over singing dude with mohawk. I'll come up with hand gestures representing each and begin a new version of rock/paper/scissors. Given these results, I'm hypothesizing that people search for attractive women at a higher rate than strange/unusual characters (only just) and both are more popular than pictures of attractive men.

Perhaps Kayley Cuoco and Mark Salling weren't evenly matched. I'd never heard of Mark Salling before Glee. And that's only been running three years now. I'm going to assume the viewership is also quite different between Big Bang Theory and Glee. But then Ralph Fiennes! What the hell? From what I've been able to gather, people are interested in the makeup job, the before and after if you will.

I don't know. Many variables. Can't wait for the field of Internet History to take off... It's interesting what people will look for. If anyone's interested, my fourth most popular post is "The Coffee Question". It's about coffee.

I shall write Miss Cuoco's letter of congratulations tomorrow. Because I'm tired and don't feel like getting to it tonight.

Lauren.

The New Year is 2012!

2012-01-01T01:11:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year Everyone!

I didn't do a lot to ring in the New Year. I borrowed my sister's Wii and played various games with my parents. How did that go? Well, I learned a few things... My father is convinced that all Nintendo games are rigged to favour Princess Peach. His favourite four letter expletive begins with the letter "f". He still does not understand the concept of the "A" button. We sat staring at the screen for several minutes each time he was prompted. As for my mother, she thought Super Smash Brothers was hilarious. Of course none of us had ever played before so we were just button mashing and hoping our character was pointed in the right direction.

Once the novelty wore off, we decided to watch a movie. It took a while to pick one but we finally decided on Sherlock Holmes. I've been wanting to watch the first one after having seen the second. I watched while working on a side writing project. My parents watched the backs of their eyelids. For the first time since we got it, I was grateful for the surround sound. It was truly hysterical to watch them jump up every time someone got shot, or beaten up, or when the music hit a particularly dramatic point. Good times. I really need to get out more.

I don't do resolutions because I always break them. Instead, I'm going to list the things I did this year that I'm proud of.

Wrote a novella in three days.
Got in to teacher's college.
Graduated. Got my BA.
Haven't attacked anyone at teacher's college.
I can get up in front of a group of people and talk. I'm getting better at handling spontaneous interruptions like questions too.
I applied to graduate school.
I really was going to apply to New York University. (That may not seem big because I didn't do it, but the fact that I wrapped my head around the notion is enormous.)
I'm getting better at coping with the more "public" aspects of my anxiety disorder. As it turns out, I wasn't as prepared to work with my GAD as I thought.
I developed a series of novels that I cannot wait to write.
I kept a few close friends that I truly couldn't live without.
I'm sleeping regularly and well.
I made people smile.

I'm sure I did other things that I'm proud of but this is what's jumping to mind at this moment. Wonder what I'll do this year...

Happy first day of 2012!

Lauren.

Space Device and Calendar Girls

2011-12-31T00:56:00.000-05:00

I went temporarily insane today. My parents asked me if I'd go with them to the mall. God, why did I go? It was ridiculously busy. I'm a girl who likes her space. I don't like being jostled, I don't like being crammed between people, I don't like having to jump out of the way to avoid being run over by a mad, cart-pushing, French-speaking, woman who isn't paying attention. It's scarier than you might think. She was on a mission I tells ya!

To avoid all of this unwanted closeness, I made some suggestions. As it turns out, my suggestions would land me in prison. Collapsible baseball bats are not an appropriate means of crowd control. Darn. It's for the threat factor... it's not like I would actually hit anyone. Really... I'm not insane... I take pills for that.

Anyway, my mother's suggestions (which were better than mine) included the following:

A hula hoop held up around my waist by suspenders. Suspenders are in right? So I'd be partially fashionable.
Hockey sticks that extend three feet in all directions. I'm less fond of this one. I think I would just be hooking a lot of things and getting stuck places. The whole point is to make moving about in crowds more convenient for me. It's just defeating the purpose if I get stuck on everything now isn't it? On top of which, I don't see how it's very different from my initial idea.

So... I'm leaning toward hula hoop. Besides, I can use it to exercise when I'm standing in the express checkout lane that moves about as quickly as all the other lanes.

I did not have either of these devices today so jostled and nearly run over I was. I'll work on it. My birthday is in March... that's not too long to wait. Unlike waiting in line at WalMart. I swear we got in line behind the one woman who decided to do a month's worth of grocery shopping.

On the bright side, I got my iced tea (which I drink now due to low caffeine content and my stupid acid reflux) and we picked up some good movies, Calendar Girls among them. If you're a fan of forty/fifty something English actresses, this movie has them all. The story is lovely too. It's the story of middle aged (I suppose) English women who posed for a nude calendar in order to raise funds. True story.

I recommend it. I find it endlessly fascinating what people will do, why they do it and how they go about getting it done. Git 'er done on a whole other level. It's not a new movie, I forget when I first saw it, but it's certainly worth it.

Check it out!

Lauren.

Percy Jackson 2 and 3

2011-12-30T01:24:00.000-05:00

My break from reality (aka teacher's college) has enabled me to do one of the two things I never get to do while in school. I've been reading. For fun. Actual books, not just random novels/short stories online to pass the time. Not that that's not reading... it's just that there's often a big gap in quality between online and printed media. Plus, online is my guilty pleasure where I read trash. Back to my point though!

In the last week I've finished two books. Books two and three of the Percy Jackson series. They are titled The Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse. Both excellent reads. I just zipped right through them. They're easy, they're fun and they are jam packed with accurate and educational material. Not to mention action, suspense and, yes, the angst of teenage romance. Actually, I find the romantic relationships to be pretty mature. I'm 22 and many of my peers still don't have that kind of, well, maturity. Maybe it's because they don't fight dragons and manticores. Despite that, this series is a much better choice for young adults than the (in my opinion) obsessive, possessive and manipulative relationships of another popular series of books. Overall, I think these books are amazing. There are social lessons, history lessons, mythology lessons, lessons about values, morals and people. And what's amazing is that they're so wrapped up in this cool, easy-going narrative, that you barely notice. Percy is probably the least intimidating narrator I've come across. He's very much your typical teenager. He's a cool kid but he's also socially awkward at times. He's insecure, he's self-consious but he's firm in his beliefs, he's loyal and trustworthy. He doesn't know everything. Usually, he's the last to know something. He speaks like a teenager and he's great to speak to a wide range of teenagers. Man! I wish Percy Jackson was in the stupid curriculum... I would have so much fun teaching that!

If you haven't checked them out yet, you must. Okay, you should. Particularly if you have a kid who's not fond of reading. The books aren't long and they don't get longer as the series progresses.

I don't want to blather on too long because I've done a Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief review and thus far, everything I said there still applies. I probably repeated.

Rick Riordan is now on my list. The good one. The one of people I want to meet.

Lauren.

2 for 1 Discoveries

2011-12-29T00:47:00.000-05:00

I can't even think of anything mildly entertaining to talk about today. Wrote, watched movies, read. I enjoyed it but it's not the most interesting thing to talk about.

Discovery of the day: Eggnog will separate from water if you let it stand. Weird right? I don't know why but I suspect it's because eggnog is thick and heavy.

Second discovery of the day: Your cat barfing is the signal that your sister's ride has arrived (very much like a doorbell). She can make it out of the house in 2.5 seconds.

Uh... that's about it for today. I know. Endlessly fascinating.

Lauren.

Quiet Day and Camelot Review

2011-12-28T00:21:00.000-05:00

Quiet day. Just what a vacation should be. I watched some movies, hung out with Dana, cleaned my room, read and did some writing. What more can a girl ask for?

This is my favourite part of Christmas break. After all the visiting and eating is over, there's silence and real rest.

I also watched the end of the newest Camelot series. I haven't seen all the episodes but from what I did see, it was quite good. I know next to nothing about Arthurian/Camelot lore but I'm pretty sure adaptations have been made. From what I do know, this version is an interesting, less magical, more "this is how the legend developed" take on the classic stories. Merlin is a magician, but in the episodes that I saw, he wasn't practicing a whole lot of magic. Also, when anyone tries to use magic, their eyes bleed. Weird twist but there you have it. I kind of like the idea of magic coming at a cost and requiring sacrifice and effort on behalf of the practitioner. No matter how it's used some terrible consequence always seems to befall the user.

Otherwise, it's got some pretty sick twists. Sick in the sense that it's icky. Then again, I suppose that's how you're supposed to feel. There isn't an excess of gore which was nice. There was also a lot, like a lot, of nudity and sex. So, while the violence is PG13, the sex makes it R or higher. The people are good looking at least? My parents were kind of awkward. Is it weird that I wasn't awkward?

Given the cliffhanger ending, my father absolutely does not want to see anything that follows this series. The end was gross (got some incest going on) and the fact that the villain didn't get her comeuppance really bothered him. He really can't handle plot twists...

If you're into Arthur and Camelot legends, it's probably worth a look.

Lauren.

Christmas Take 2

2011-12-27T00:35:00.000-05:00

Today was a long day. I spent most of it with family. We had dinner and celebrated Christmas with my Mom's side of the family yesterday and we redid the whole shebang with my Dad's side today. It was mostly the same though the menu was a little larger. We aren't carnivores at all... no... we only had a beef roast, a pork roast, clam chowder (which I cannot eat), chicken wings (which I didn't want to attempt eating), meatballs and... I feel I'm forgetting a meat group. Oh, we also had bacon in things and wrapped around things. So... I'd best not marry a vegetarian or God forbid a vegan. The poor thing will starve. There were two salads, one made of leaves, the other made of pasta and neither one were vegan friendly. We didn't even thank God or the numerous animals that died. We're going to hell and making vegans cry.

Aside from that, I came home with a few riddles.

1) How many types of bird are there in "The Twelve Days of Christmas"?
2) If you have three grown men in front of a plate of cookies, each with two arms and two hands, how long will it take for the cookies to disappear?
3) How many Hail Marys or Our Fathers will I have to say in order to be forgiven for enjoying the dead pork and meatballs?

Okay, so only the first one is a riddle, but what do you think? It's not as obvious as you might think.

After all that, I realized that I've finally gotten to an age where I make children uncomfortable. My cousin arrived with her four children (all with an energy rating of 12 on a scale reaching 10). My other cousin brought her daughter. I babysat the latter, but she was still shy around me even though I could hear her shouting "LAUREN BABYSAT ME! SHE'S MY BABYSITTER!" And then one of the four became curious about birthstones. By some weird twist of fate that I didn't see coming, we happened to have the same birthday. Weird. What the hell is so special about the day 9 months prior to March 24th? I know like six people with that birthday. Beside the point. My aunt practically dragged the poor girl over, even after said girl had protested stating "I DON'T EVEN KNOW HER!" She grabbed the girl's hand and flung it toward me. I shook it. My aunt then proceeded to talk for the poor child. I tried to look sympathetic. I don't like people now. I certainly didn't like them when I was her age. I answered her question and she scampered off screaming the answer to her siblings. Kids really have to learn to whisper. Maybe I'll do a lesson on that...

A long day, but definitely fun. Christmas is over! Yippee!

Lauren.

Christmas Crisis Averted

2011-12-25T22:47:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I get so worked up for Christmas every year. It never ends up being a horrible disaster. At least not anymore. Maybe my family has just stopped caring? Or maybe they've come to the conclusion that I'm super gay and won't ask about a partner until I tell them and they can't ignore it. Either way, if I don't have to answer boyfriend questions, I'm a happy camper. And while my one aunt was clearly "chomping at the bit" to talk to me about teaching and how I was finding teacher's college, she didn't once insult me. Do I have street cred now or something? Family confuses me.

There was however one incident. My grandfather, with his ever-pleasant demeanour, decided that he wasn't happy with one of his gifts. He sulked when he opened it and asked what he was expected to use it for. It was a gift certificate to Canadian Tire. We all suspect it was a hint to purchase the remaining two winter tires he needs. We live in northern Ontario. You need winter tires and you need them in the front and back of your car. I completely missed that incident. I don't know where I was... probably eating and not caring about what was going on around me... we'll just say I was in the bathroom. When my sister, who was completely scandalized, told me of the incident, I kind of wanted to laugh.

There are two reasons I found the situation humorous. The first is that my grandfather's behaviour is not at all outside his norm. He's a miserable man who, quite frankly, should count himself lucky that people still visit him, let alone give him gifts. So, surprised that he did it in front of everyone? A little. Surprised that he did it? Absolutely not.

The second reason is the funnier of the two. Yesterday, my mother spent a considerable amount of time wrapping gift cards. Yup, she's that meticulous. Well, this morning we all gathered to open our gifts. I got some lovely new cardigans (which according to the grade nines, I wear a lot of). My mom got her sweatpants which she is not allowed to leave the house in. My dad got some movies. My sister was the recipient of the majority of the gift cards. She got one for Shoppers, she got one for gas, she got one for a restaurant... Wait, a restaurant? My mom paused over that. My sister wasn't supposed to get a gift card to a restaurant. That was supposed to go to my grandparents. Being me, I logically suggested opening my grandparents' gift card. After some fiddling with the wrapping, we came upon my sister's gift. A gift card to La Senza.

If my grandfather was unhappy with a Canadian Tire gift certificate, I'm curious to know how he would have reacted to getting a gift card to La Senza. Now how would he use that one?

Where one can purchase car parts, tools, decorations, cookware stuff, winter clothing...

OR WHAT HE NEARLY GOT...

A lingerie store where nothing there would fit him.

I don't think those are the kind of tires a car requires in Northern Ontario. See? I don't know why I panic. With shit like this happening, I should be endlessly entertained.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Lauren.

Many FUs

2011-12-24T22:37:00.000-05:00

I doubt any of you need me to tell you this, but it's Christmas Eve. I don't know why, especially since I've been looking forward to the holidays for weeks, but I don't feel particularly Christmassy. I guess part of it has to do with our shocking lack of snow. There's nothing! In 22 years I've never seen a green Christmas. I don't like it. Maybe less-than-Christmas-cheer has something to do with my lack of mall visits or excursions into places where Christmas music would be played obsessively. I didn't bake with my grandma, I didn't help her set up her tree. I still don't have the winter layer in my coat. I really should do that...

In spite of all that, tomorrow is in fact Christmas. My sister will pop in tomorrow before nine, we'll all open gifts, we'll traipse over to my grandmother's, probably come home for a bit, then leave again for Christmas dinner at my Uncle's. The dinner will likely feel redundant given that we'll be there with my grandparents, my cousin T and his girlfriend. But whatever, that's Christmas right? Seeing all your relatives, getting your fill for the year... We usually have a ton of dinners and other such things at this time. About three on my mom's side and one on my dad's. I don't particularly look forward to any of them. Although I am rather curious about turducken, which is allegedly what we're going to be eating tomorrow night. I think I'll take my heartburn medication. As a precautionary measure.

The reason I don't look forward to my family get togethers is that many of my relatives are more interested in tearing me down than boosting me up. They're like that with everyone so it's not just me, but I don't really see why I should have to put up with it. Over the years I've made several families. Families are people who make you feel good about yourself and help you without question. It's not a blood thing. As you may suspect, my relatives... don't always fit those criteria. I can't wait to see my one aunts and listen while she tells me that I'll make a horrible teacher and that's it's much more work than I expected. I also can't wait to hear the usual "where's your boyfriend" comments. I await them with great anticipation every year. This year's responses will include:

With regards to being a horrible teacher:
I have thirty kids who will say otherwise. (I'm leaving room for some kids to dislike me)
My faculty advisor and the grade she gave me would disagree with you.
IF THAT FAILS: I'll likely just ignore it.

I think a polite "FU" is most effective in this case.

With regards to my "boyfriend":
I can't decide between Jeff, Ben and Greg... they all have such different talents. (A sarcastic FU)
I just keep falling for people who aren't interested in me. (The awkward FU)
I'm a lesbian. (Shock value FU)
IF THAT FAILS: I'll likely just ignore it.

You'll notice the lack of a polite FU in this category. I can't think of one... I've gone over this too often. I suppose you've also noticed that I know a lot of ways to say FU. And that's just with language. You should see body language. Should I have the opportunity to use any of these, I'll let you know how that goes over.

For now however, Merry Christmas!

Lauren.

BEd Detox

2011-12-23T23:22:00.000-05:00

Another quiet day.

At the beginning of the year (meaning starting in September) as well as at the beginning of every placement, I assured various people that I would never get used to being up and at it by eight thirty.

Well, I think I think I got used to it. Three weeks of my placement routine has thrown off all my other routines. I'm not sleeping which is odd after sleeping through the night every night since September. I'm not sleeping in, which is something I used to do without trying. The other day I was at the school where I did my placement. I was there for the first period class. Because I got a ride, I arrived at my usual time. Just sitting there waiting, I realized how much I actually did accomplish by eight thirty. It never felt like much time while I was doing it, but just waiting... I couldn't help but wonder why I'd been rushing.

And now that I have nothing I need to be doing urgently, I'm mystified about what I used to do with my time. What did I used to do with my time? Read, write... neither of them feel... urgent enough. I feel like I need to be accomplishing so many things but I don't have anything that needs accomplishing. I feel weird. This is weird.

I think there needs to be a BEd detox. Like when scuba divers surface too quickly, they get the benz, well, I've got whatever BEd students get when all activity ceases.

Lauren "I'm Bored" Daily

Searching for Today

2011-12-22T22:39:00.000-05:00

Lauren scampered about her home in a confused daze. She knew she'd left it somewhere. Where had she seen it last? Into the hall closet she dove, pushing aside coat after coat until she found her own. It was purple and still in its spring form. She kept forgetting to add the winter layer. Perhaps she'd do that after she concluded her search.

Anxiously, the brunette dug through her pockets, practically turning them inside out in her haste. She didn't find what she was looking for. Although, it did comfort her to know that her keys were tangled up in her mittens and what she hoped was an unused tissue. She stormed off to her next target. Her coat remained in the closet, untouched.

She searched the laundry room. Recently her parents implemented a policy that everyone was to use the backdoor to avoid tracking in pine needles, slush and sand. She rarely remembered to go around the house, but still, on occasion her things wound up hanging by the door. Unfortunately, it was painfully obvious that none of her things were there. She did however add "ignore the litter box" to her list of things to do.

Desperate, Lauren tidied her room. Again. Nothing. She looked under her bed. She found a few boxes, some hair elastics and many socks but nothing close to what she was after. She was getting angry. It had to be somewhere. Things didn't just disappear!

Deciding that a momentary break from her hunt would enable her to think more clearly, Lauren flipped open her laptop. Her screen refreshed and there, sitting before her, was exactly what she'd been looking for. How she'd spent her whole day playing with iMovie she couldn't say, but at least now she knew where her day went.

Okay, so after I took Meeko to the vet, got snarled at, covered in hair, chuckled at by a strange English veterinarian, ran a red light and wrestled my idiot cat out of the car, I didn't do much. And that was over by ten o'clock at the latest. I don't usually get chuckled at by strange people with accents until noon. I'm not sure that counts either since my sister's usually the one doing the accent. She's favouring Scottish at the moment. It sound kind of like a cross between Fat Bastard and Kevin McKidd. Now imagine that voice coming out of Liv Tyler and that's my sister. Are you afraid?

Anyway, notes from today: I did nothing. It was a good day. Cats will escape from laundry baskets and cause you to run red lights if they are given the opportunity. Keep the last one in mind. You never know when that information will come in handy.

Lauren.

The Dork Who Didn't Look Dorky

2011-12-21T22:13:00.000-05:00

I must be wicked for I shall not rest.

I was up bright and early today. My former English students were performing their versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and I didn't want to miss it. Seriously though, these kids are very smart and really funny. I wanted to see what they'd come up with. On top of which, last Friday one of my students asked me if I'd be there and I told her I would. I don't break promises. Of course, I did get a few strange looks. The teachers that passed me kind of chuckled and said things like "Can't get enough?" I suppose not. It was all worth it though. At what other point in my life am I going to be able to see a Pirates of the Caribbean inspired Shakespearean adaptation? Or, a gangsta adaptation (I'm ignoring Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo). There was also farmer version, a Glee version and a Jersey Shore version. For the Jersey Shore skit, they had the one girl dress up in a weird skirt. They also had her tuck in her uniform shirt. She had crooked pigtails and huge glasses.

Oh crap... when did they get here? When did I get red curtains? Whatever. I'm just going to continue.

Did she look like a dork? No. Not really.

Stacy, if you're going to be a Doubting Thomas you can leave. I don't need your Doubting Thomastry. Yes, Thomastry. It's a word. Look it up.

As I was saying. Yes, she did look like the stereotypical dork, but at the same time, not so much. Somehow, I don't profess to know how, but it didn't look nearly as awkward as it should have. Isn't it weird how some people can do that? Throw on a horrible outfit and somehow make it work? Meanwhile, I've been raiding my mother's closet for suitable work clothes. I do have to say, for Stacy's sake, that the one boy (he was playing a girl) needed a much better bra. His boobs ended up looking more like a beer-belly by the time his presentation was over. I simply told him that he'd gone through the stages of womanhood at an excelerated rate. He looked kind of terrified at that information. Hey, he wanted G sized boobs... there are consequences.

In any case, the presentations were fun and creative. I rather enjoyed myself.

Aside from all that, I had a relatively quiet day. As quiet as days get when your cat sounds like a lawn mower. We're taking him to the vet tomorrow. Essentially that means I'm going to be the one packing him up in laundry baskets because after eleven years we still don't have a carrier. I'll be the one holding him. And later, when we finally get home, I'll be the one he avoids all day. Yup, kitty holds a grudge. He's going to be super pissed tomorrow because he's not allowed to eat. My cat weighs sixteen pounds. He likes eating almost as much as he likes sleeping. Drama aside, it is kind of funny (in a I can't believe you're trying that kind of way) to watch him try to literally dig his way out of the laundry baskets.

By the way, returning to my original thought regarding my wickedness. I have to be up early tomorrow to take Mr. Kitty to the vet. It's going to be an interesting day. I should film it. Maybe we'll have the psycho vet who thought I was serious when I said I wanted to make a sweater of my cats fur. As a business venture. I'm aware that I'm a little unusual, but I haven't jumped off the crazy cliff yet. I'm still pretty far from the ledge. The worst part is that I wasn't the first person to think of doing that. I was, unfortunately, the only one who was kidding. Gross.

We'll see what adventures await at the vet's tomorrow.

Lauren.

Hanging Out and Sherlock Holmes 2 Review

2011-12-21T00:01:00.000-05:00

I reconnected with another of my lost friends today. No, they weren't lost. I was the absent one. Well, most of my friends are in their final year at university so we're all busy and all secluding ourselves in our academic bubbles. A lot of my friends are also working and planning weddings. I don't know how they do it. I suppose I should be grateful I'm socially stunted to begin with. I'd probably be a terrible girlfriend right about now. Would I have enough awkward charm to save myself? I know not.

I any case, out for sushi with Jenny I went. I only ever eat sushi with Jenny. I don't know why, but that's how it works out. She always knows what to order and I'm like a human garburator who will try anything twice. Today's new food was a sweet potato roll. Quite tasty. We chatted about all kinds of things as usual. I think the last time we hung out was in... eep! During the summer! I think the servers were getting annoyed by us. Eventually three of them made their rounds, stopping at our table and asking if we were done. We were talking... and not ordering more food... Two of them went off in Japanese at the table next to ours. I don't know what the subject of their conversation was. Why does everything sound so... serious and snappish in Chinese or Japanese? Two years in a Chinese food restaurant and I can't figure it out.

If you recall, I also hung out with Veronica this past weekend. We went to see Sherlock Holmes 2 and I did not share my opinion as effectively as I could have. I shall critique it for you now.

So, the story pretty much picks up where the first movie left off, chasing Professor Moriarty. And yes, you actually get to see who he is. Holmes has linked Moriarty to a series of bombings in France and Germany. He suspects that Moriarty is trying to play the nations off on one another but he isn't entirely clear as to why. The movie proceeds with Holmes relentlessly hunting his nemesis and often, being thwarted, but only just. The end, as one might expect, was left open. There could be another sequel on the way.

In terms of action, it's right up there with the last one. Lots of explosions, lots of fight scenes, lots of weaponry that you may not be expecting. There are chase scenes and numerous plot twists. At the same time, the wit and slapstick humour of the first movie are again used to break up what would otherwise be a very violent, dark movie. It's still violent, but the humour doesn't allow the violence to be the central focus. I think it could probably be said that this one is more violent than the first. I'm hesitant to say it, but the argument could be made. I find the first Holmes used a lot of... punching, kicking, martial arts type of fighting. In this one, the fighting is primarily accomplished by using older versions of modern weapons. The additional and different violence is the result of the story centering on the kind of international terrorism that a 21st century audience would be familiar with, rather than focusing on a psychotic/serial killer type terrorism as was the case with the first film.

I enjoyed it. I don't think fans of the first movie will be disappointed. By the same token, I don't think people who haven't seen the first movie would be confused seeing the second. It was worth paying to see.

Alright, so, now I just have to hang out with Dana and all will be right in my world.

In about nine hours I will be watching my students perform their scenes from Shakespeare. I'm not going to lie. I'm excited.

Lauren.

I'm Not Weird. I Just Like My Students

2011-12-19T23:18:00.000-05:00

There's just something about kids running up to you the second they see you that makes you feel special. Especially when they run up to you because they're excited to show you their Shakespeare assignment. Is this what Santa feels like?

I had some things to drop off at my placement and well, that was pretty much the high point of my day. My former religion kids saw me and asked "What are you doing here? I thought Friday was your last day". To which I could only logically reply that "I'm like a really bad disease. Just when you think you've gotten rid of me, I come back". I told them not to guess at which disease I am. To be honest, I was thinking of herpes. I've never had herpes, but I imagine that nothing would say "surprise!" quite like a flare up. You don't need to tell me if you know.

Herpes and Santa aside, what I'm really trying to say is that I like my students. I never expected teaching to feel so... validating. I love watching people just come to understand something. It's so neat. Sometimes you can actually see all the pieces falling into place and the lightbulb going off. And what's even better than that, is seeing the quiet kids you rarely hear from, excel at something and learning about them that way. The insight you're privy to as a teacher can be absolutely fascinating.

The reason I bring this up is because I had a random conversation with one of my professors today. He quoted "elementary teachers love their students, secondary teachers love their subjects and university professors love themselves". While I can think of several cases in which the latter is true, I don't think the former can be applied that generally. I've had elementary teachers who couldn't stand us. I've had secondary teachers who'd probably been teaching one subject so long that the words coming out of their mouth lost all meaning. They subsequently had little meaning when they got to my ears but that's another story. My professor commented that my section at school was strange in that we seemed to genuinely care more for our students than had been the norm over the last ten years. I find that to be strange. How do you not care about your students? You see them every day, you work along side them, you see them in ways that their parents won't see them, in some cases, you see them more than their parents will see them. How do you not care? I feel awful when a kid misunderstands something I said and fails a test or a quiz. I look for places I can give partial marks. I hate seeing a kid frustrated because what I'm saying just isn't making sense. And it really bugs me if I can't think of a different way to explain myself. I don't know how you can realistically expect to teach kids if you don't care about them. I mean, if you don't care about them, why should they care about you? Reciprocity. You can't expect from others that which you are unwilling to extend.

There you have it. Lauren's Pearls of Wisdom. They're rare but they happen.

Aside from that, I baked. A lot. About six dozen cookies of one kind and another two and a half dozen of another. Why all this baking was a good idea is still eluding me. Although, I got to bake with an egg replacer and that was kind of interesting. Got to love Christmas!

Lauren.

Finally Sick-ish

2011-12-18T22:27:00.000-05:00

It seems to have finally happened. I've been feeling sick and gross and just all around awful for about a week now. I guess a week of feeling blah finally came to a head. I spent most of the day in bed either reading or sleeping. I still feel like crap. Although, I think I forgot to take my meds today so that's definitely not helping.

Of the things I needed to do, I only did the bare minimum. I did some marking... not enough to really say I did it. I wrapped my Christmas gifts because if I didn't it would have been pointless to wrap them at all. Not that I would mind. I hate wrapping gifts. For all of my artistic abilities, I can't seem to manage folding paper around a square object. Yeah, squares, it's not even a complicated shape or God forbid, a sphere. You can always tell which gifts are mine by the way they're wrapped. And it's not like I don't try. I do. The paper just won't cooperate. It's all on the paper. I have no part in the screwing up of such a simple task. If only I'd learned origami as a child!

I don't think I did anything else of significance. I started reading the third instalment of the Percy Jackson series, a purchase I justified yesterday with the claim that "I need a new book to go with my new bookmark!" If you think about it, it really does make perfect sense though initially, people seem to regard that statement with some incredulity. Even the guy at the book store (who usually understands my book buying issues so well) laughed and gave me a look. Well! If Bruce is no longer on my side, I don't know what the world is coming to.

Alas, I am now going to go to bed. I'm wearing a sweater over a long sleeve t-shirt, I'm under a sheet, a comforter and two wool blankets. Am I warm? No, no I am not. This is a sign of exhaustion. I must remedy that.

Lauren.

Visiting a Good Day

2011-12-18T01:10:00.000-05:00

I wish I wasn't so tired right now. Veronica came to visit and well, we got a lot done. I started and finished my Christmas shopping (with Veronica's help). We visited the university library, which we were unable to do last time. Oddly enough, there was a couple there getting married... I haven't given marriage a tremendous amount of thought, but I don't think I'd want to be married in my school library. It's a nice building, I love books (generally more than I love people) but it seems kind of strange to me. While there, we ventured up to the third floor. After testing out the chairs, we contemplated doing a potentially bad (though definitely ill-advised) thing with a bouncy-ball. Let's just say you can see right down to the first floor and there are no obstructions. How high would it bounce back? If only we'd had a bouncy-ball...

Coffee followed. And by coffee I mean a hot chocolate and an iced coffee beverage that doesn't taste too strongly of coffee. We also went out to dinner before catching a few movies. The first we watched at my house, the second we went to the theatre for. While my movie cabinet is pretty stocked, I am not important enough, nor right enough, to possess a copy of Sherlock Holmes 2. This is why I wish I was less tired. I could give a well rounded critique. That will have to wait until tomorrow I suppose. For now, I will say that I enjoyed it and thought the miniature pony scene was absolutely priceless.

An uncharacteristically good day I must say. I'll get back to you with details from the movie. I swear I will!

Lauren.

Lasts and Firsts

2011-12-17T01:17:00.000-05:00

Today was a day of firsts.

During my entire scholastic career, I've never attended a school dance. I'm shy, I don't like big crowds of people... combined with the loud music I feel claustrophobic. So I never went. Actually, my sister spend more time at my prom than I did. Tonight, I went to my very first high school dance. Granted I went as a teacher but whatever, it counts. I would have hated it when I was in high school but I found the experience quite entertaining. Sociologists would have a field day! It was a formal so all the kids were dressed up. A lot of the girls had really nice dresses. A lot of girls... were barely wearing dresses. Some of them were told that under no circumstance were they to bend over. Not that you need that mental image. I certainly didn't. I did however learn that by touching a guy's elbow, it will cause him to immediately move his hands from his girlfriend/hook up's ass to a more appropriate location. Filing that tidbit away. I was quite happy to see that none of the student's I've been teaching looked like they belonged on a street corner. They all looked nice. Most of them said hi to me which surprised one of the teachers. Yeah, that's right, I'm that awesome.

My second first was more awkward. It took until I was 22, but a 14 year old boy finally asked me to dance. I always knew I was a late bloomer socially... He also said I looked nice. Is this what people meant when they kept telling me "all in good time" and "it'll happen"? Because I feel kind of creepy. Seriously! What the hell is going on this week? First some teacher tries to set me up with a guy, then one of my student's asks me to dance... I wonder what would have happened if I could stay on my placement longer... apparently woman wasn't the next inevitable step...

My final first. I don't drink coffee. There's no real reason, I'm just not fond of the taste. Tonight, a teacher brought a bunch. They were just sitting on the table, five feet away. I was thirsty. I don't mind it. I don't like it either. The heartburn is not worth it! But I finally, as my AT put it, lost my coffee virginity.

I have to say, today was a good day. I need the break, but I think I will miss my classes. Yes, it's only been three weeks but I had two classes of really good kids. Some were more challenging than others but all of them were funny and sweet and gifted in their own way. For all the stress of getting everything ready and essentially being a performing monkey, I laughed a lot. I enjoyed my time with the students. Even the ones I sometimes wanted to smack upside the head (affectionately of course). Which actually brings me to my next point. The whole secrecy thing at the beginning of the week! The students signed a card for me. They wrote me little wishes, thank yous and we'll miss yous. They bet I would cry, I'm not a crier, but I did awkwardly giggle (which my AT predicted I would do). I'll admit, I'm extremely proud of that card. One girl wrote me a haiku! Another one advised me to always use punctuation properly. They learned! I actually taught people something! I can do this after all!

I probably didn't express myself in the best way when they gave me the card because I'm awkward, but it did mean a lot. I think I'm going to frame it. It was the perfect end of my placement. I'm actually surprised at how attached I am to my students... I don't get attached to people easily. Hmmm...

Lauren.

Metaphors, Math and Minor Miracles

2011-12-16T00:06:00.000-05:00

I don't have much to say about today. Mainly because I'm really tired and have to get through tomorrow. At this point, I can't even imagine getting up at 7. It just feels like cruel and unusual punishment. I feel like a shark. Vacation is in the air like blood in the water. I've caught the scent and it's really hard to focus and do what needs to be done. Particularly after a not all that great day. My AT was sick and the kids... did what kids do. I think they smell the blood in the water as much as I do. There you go. Unexpected, kind of scary metaphor.

I can't wait to sort through all my excess paper. I can't wait to put all my books away. I can't wait to clean my room! OH! I can't wait to wear jeans again! And crappy t-shirts! OR PYJAMA PANTS! That will be heaven. Yeah, I'm excited about pants. What? It's the little things that make life special.

Anyway, I spent way too much time tonight trying to figure out how to magically convert levels into numbers. I'm going to be annoyed if it's some kind of haphazard system that involves choosing a random number. God I hate math.

Hopefully I dream of The Count from Sesame Street. I think he would be able to explain math in a way that I can understand.

Lauren.

30 Bad Liars

2011-12-14T20:00:00.004-05:00

I must say, the grade nines are terrible liars. They're sweet, but awful at subterfuge. My AT left a ton of papers in her mail box this morning. She sent me down to get them. I thought it was kind of weird, but whatever. I figured she had something she wanted to cover with the students so I just went.

After I'd picked up her stuff, I started walking back toward the elevator. The principal was standing right by the elevator door. I still feel guilty using the elevator (because contrary to popular belief, I am not disabled). I took the stairs. I got bored one day and counted how many stairs there are between my class on fourth and the ground floor. There are sixty. I'm not that in shape. I can do 20?

I got back to the class and the door was locked. Also weird. I knocked and it took a while for them to let me in. My AT was the worst of them all. The kid who opened the door for me was clutching his nose, claiming that he was hurt. Since my AT was trying not to laugh and the majority of the other kids had huge smirks on their faces, I wasn't buying it. Besides, what am I supposed to do with a broken nose? There's nothing in a first aid kit for that... except bandages and his hands were too clean for him to be bleeding. I ignored him and handed my AT her papers. She was still laughing when she told me that Broken Nose really did need to talk to me. I again left the class. The door closed the second I was gone.

Broken Nose walked me down the hallway in front of one of the displays. He tried to make small talk to distract me. I don't think it went exactly according to plan... he wound up asking me "Miss Daily, I have to go potty, will you help me?" I just raised an eyebrow at him and replied "I didn't help you with a broken nose, do you really think I'm going to do that for you?" To prevent further awkward topics, I took over making small talk. We talked about music, university, poetry, all kinds of things. I wound up sitting on the floor by the door of my class. Broken Nose decided he needed to return to his peers after a while. He knocked but he was having a hard time getting back into class. The students inside untaped one of the art pieces from the window to peek out. As soon as he managed to get inside, my AT came out. I have to say, I felt kind of popular.

She claimed that she was guilting the students because their poetry was awful. Broken Nose got to leave because his work was alright. About five of the best writers were still in the class. That and I don't know when she would have had the opportunity to see everyone's poetry. Before we could really get into it (she was still giggling and somehow claiming not to be an atrocious liar) she started staring at and picking at the doorframe asking "Is that asbestos? What does asbestos look like? Is it mould?"

I was finally allowed back into class. They were all wearing the biggest grins. It was weird to jump into Shakespeare after that. The period went well enough but I don't know what they're up to... I'm guessing that I'll find out soon enough.

Like I said, sweet, great kids, terrible liars. Not that that's a bad thing.

Lauren.

Before I Remember

2011-12-14T00:22:00.000-05:00

Hey there!

Here I am, freezing, sitting in my room in the Middle of Nowhere. It's passed midnight and I'm really tired. Why do I procrastinate? I knew I had a ton of stuff to do. Why did I have to take that bath? Why did I have to read that book? Why does my brain have to be shutting down now?! I still need it! Three more days and then it can turn off and do whatever it likes. For now, I need it to work.

Anyway, before I remember something I forgot to do, I'm going to bed.

Goodnight!

Lauren.

Phases of Attraction

2011-12-12T23:50:00.000-05:00

Today was pleasantly quiet until about... four o'clock? I wasn't teaching English and in Religion my students were writing a test. Translation: I didn't have a whole lot to worry about. I corrected some English work. I corrected the religion test. I started writing out my lesson for tomorrow. I wasn't feeling the pressure.

And then I got home. Two lessons to plan. That doesn't sound like a lot I'm sure, but I'm starting Shakespeare with the nines. I'm starting the Islam unit with the elevens. I had to read all the content, consider what I wanted them to do, how they were going to prove they knew what I thought they should know... It's a miracle they don't have mental institutions specifically for teachers. Or do they? I might run it... Plus! I had to consider my handouts! The handouts! Bleh. Planning is vital but it still hurts my butt. Meaning that it takes a long time and I'm stuck in the same chair until it's done.

On a more interesting note, I'm moving up in the world.

I've always attracted animals. It's like they know I'm going to pet them and defend them if someone is about to be a douche. Animals tend to follow me around. I don't know why, they just do. Dogs, cats (cats!) fish are kind of limited... but you get the point. After that, kids started to find me interesting. Babies smiled at me. Why I don't know. Perhaps my discomfort is funny? Toddlers started thinking that I'm amazing. I was their best friend. I have a ton of friends under the age of six. For a while I felt a bit like Snow White. I couldn't remember sticking my head out the window and belting out some catchy tune... but whatever I did or do, it was attracting animals and small children.

Today I've managed to attract an adult male. Fascinating. And flattering. I'm not going to lie. My AT shares a math room with another teacher we'll call... Beverly. During her prep period, my AT informed me that Beverly had asked her if I was single. People don't generally ask that question of me... so I was taken aback. I asked my AT why this question was going around. Beverly was apparently in the mood to play matchmaker. She wanted to set me up with the math/history teacher we'll call... Carl. I think my first reaction was to giggle and ask "seriously?" which I realize is terribly mature. I should have popped my gum and flipped my hair as well. And then I realized that I should probably ask my AT what she responded. Thankfully she told Beverly that she thought I was single but that she didn't think it was a good idea. I don't think I've ever used the word LESBIAN! around my AT but I apparently made myself plenty clear.

Now that I've attracted the attentions of a male human, perhaps I'll be able to attract the attentions of a female human. It's the next inevitable step. I mean, really, think about it. It's only logical. And we all know that logic is important in these matters.

That's the kind of day it was. I'm now off to bed.

Lauren.

A Knit Sweater is a Sign of Future Happiness?

2011-12-11T21:55:00.000-05:00

Another quiet day. Again I wrote, I read, I did a bit of work...

Interestingly enough, last night, I had a dream about knit sweaters and learning how to make them. I know that doesn't sound interesting, but when I actually remember my dreams, for fun, I look up what they mean. I usually only remember one or two main things so looking up those key symbols is easy.

I looked up knit sweater and didn't get anything. So I looked up knit and got the following:

Knitting
To dream that you are knitting signifies a quiet, peaceful and loving home life. It may also refer to someone in your life (past or present) who you associate with knitting. Alternatively, knitting symbolizes your creativity or accomplishments. You need to take time out from your regular routine. To dream that you have difficulties knitting means that you are avoiding some issue.

I only included the difficulties thing because I was learning to knit... so I obviously I'm going to have problems. Even in my dreams no one is perfect.

Because that didn't cover the sweater aspect of my dream, I also looked up what a sweater meant.

Sweater
To see or wear a sweater in your dream symbolizes warmth and love. You have a strong connection to your family and home life. Alternatively, a sweater represents innocence, immaturity, and/or naive thinking. To dream that you are knitting a sweater symbolizes your creativity. It may also indicate that you need practice patience.

When I read both definitions, I remembered that in my dream I was married and had kids. For my friends reading this, I do not have the baby bug... I'm still too immature for that. The sweater told me so. I do however need to practice patience. I'm usually quite patient but when I'm caught in the middle of numerous things at once, I feel scattered and I need resolutions more urgently.

Kind of weird right? Because I also spent the majority of this weekend indulging in pastimes I haven't had the time for in a while. So I did step out of my normal routine. The other part that I find hilarious is the bit about living in a loving home. I do. But I was alone all weekend. Does that mean my dream was referencing the future? Since I'm not presently married or have children. Although... my grade nine English students keep calling me Mrs. Daily... maybe they've confused the Cosmos.

I don't know. I thought it was funny.

The less funny thing I discovered today was that my parents are terrible Christians. I'm giving my grade 11 world religion class a test tomorrow. Yup, I get that privilege as a student teacher. I also get the privilege of marking them. I thought the answers were fairly obvious. My parents got most of the multiple choice questions wrong. Well... I guess we know where they'll be going afterlife wise... I'm kind of happy about that. It means that I'll have company. Maybe they can save me a good seat. After all, I dreamt of a sweater. Given that evidence, I don't see how they could NOT save me a seat.

These are my intelligent thoughts of the day. I wish you all dreams of comfy knit sweaters!

Lauren.

In Between Decision Making

2011-12-11T00:02:00.000-05:00

Once again, I am preparing to live in a land of regret. I did nothing today. I read, I wrote, watched some movies, didn't do a whole lot more. I was by myself most of today and I really didn't feel like doing anything. Tomorrow of course, I'm going to have plenty to keep me occupied. Lovely.

To be honest, I needed a quiet day. I didn't even get any emails. Well, I got one email, but I didn't pay close attention to it. There are a lot of things going through my mind and they're... rather difficult to deal with at this juncture in time. I'm in between so many things at the moment that it's hard to know where I stand on anything.

My issues with teacher's college are no secret but now, there's also doubt. Between evaluations, comments, experience and conversations with friends, I don't know that I'm headed in the right direction. There are elements of teaching that I love, but I'm not sure that those elements outweigh the aspects that I'm not fond of. It's difficult to objectively weigh everything because I am so inexperienced. I haven't had time to really get used to anything. It's a very strange system. We're taken directly out of a university setting and plopped into a secondary/elementary setting and expected to adapt perfectly within a matter of three weeks. We just start getting used to the school and class we're in then we're gone again. It frustrates me.

Aside from that, I don't know where I'll be next year and that bothers me. It's the first time... ever, that I don't know what's going to happen. I may be accepted to grad school which will entail a move to Toronto. My application could be rejected in which case, I don't know what I'm going to do. Even if I do decide to go forward with teaching, there are no jobs here.

I don't really have friends at the moment. Of course I have friends, but my BEd friends are off on placement so I don't see them. My pre-BEd friends live out of town or are writing exams and midterms, so I don't see them. Not that I would if they weren't busy. Because I'm busy. And boring. Because all I have to talk about is education. Although, placement does provide me with more entertaining stories.

So you see, I'm in the middle and I don't like it. Today gave me the time I needed to look at my options and weigh pros and cons. Let's just say I've made a soft decision. I suspect that the decision has been made, but I'm leaving room to change my mind. You never know what's going to happen until it happens. Am I right?

Lauren.

Evaluation Day (Week End Review 2/3)

2011-12-09T23:13:00.000-05:00

There is a disconnect between my brain and my body today (more than usual). My brain kept telling me that today would be fine. My body kept me running. I'll let you imagine where to. It was my evaluation day. When I really think about it, it's kind of silly that I was that nervous, but no matter what I told myself, my body had plans of its own. I have a teacher watching me and judging my teaching every day, what's one more? Realistically speaking, the difference isn't that big. They just sit in the back of the room writing away.

I made a few mistakes because I was nervous. Nothing unusual there. The class itself went rather well though. I had the students looking for poetic devices in Christmas songs, then they wrote a chorus based on a prompt I wrote out. It was pretty fun and they came up with some really great stuff in such a short time.

Funny moment of the day? Well, I was going around getting the groups to read the chorus they'd written. I'd read/heard them all before asking the students to read their chorus aloud to the class, so I knew what each group had done. I got to the group at the back and asked to hear what they wrote. A kid that doesn't usually talk started reading. I suddenly realized that it wasn't the chorus I'd heard before, but what was I going to do? Cut him off? It was a rap. There was some serious attitude in it. It wasn't too bad... until of course Santa gets shot with an AK47. Really. He shot Santa. He never says anything and on the day I'm being evaluated he decides it's a good idea vocalize a desire to whack Santa. At the time, I probably didn't respond in the best way... All I could think of to say was, "Well, you're not getting presents this year". My AT told me afterward that I really need to censor that kind of thing. I tried... I didn't realize the little rotter had written a second chorus until it was too late. Although, now that I think of it, it is strange that his group would choose him to read...

The "funny ha-ha" moment of the day is when a group decided to have Mrs Claus dancing, drinking and duggying at a club. When I asked them why they chose that particular alliteration, the one group member threw down a dance beat using the "d" sound and explained that it was to enhance Mrs Claus' clubbing experience.

In spite of the unexpected homicide, all was well. I have to work on a couple of things (no surprise there either) and I apparently say "okay" a lot. My advisor made a check mark on my evaluation sheet every time I said "okay". There were about fifty/sixty check marks. According to her this is the kind of thing students will pick up on and make fun of me for. If that's all they have on me, I feel lucky. And if they're bored enough to be making check marks of what I'm saying, obviously I'm not doing my job very well.

One more week in grades 9 and 11 and then I'll be shipped off to a different school to teach grade 8. According to my evaluator, if I don't work on a few things, they will eat me alive and enjoy it. Sounds like fun to me.

Lauren.

The Day Before... Sort of.

2011-12-09T01:13:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm late. I know. Whatever.

I'm being evaluated tomorrow. I'm really nervous.

I started getting anxious after school today. When I got home, I could feel the anxiety in my chest. I really hate it when it gets there... it's so annoying. To decompress a little, I decided to write a letter. It didn't help that much. I got back to work. Every noise, very movement was an interruption. I realize that's my deal not anyone else's. The anxiety doubled by eight o'clock when I still had next to nothing done. And then my advisor called, reminding me that she'd be at school at 8:30, ready to go. I hung up the phone, anxiety doubled again. I really didn't need the reminder. I know it's a courtesy thing, but really? My evaluation isn't something I'm likely to forget. I've had the date committed to memory for about a month. So with quadruple my initial anxiety, I got back to work. You can imagine the going was pretty slow.

I've just now finished all my prep work. It's one o'clock. If I forgot something, I don't care. I'm too tired and too cold to care. I'm too tired and cold to be anxious anymore.

Sleepy time. Those of you who have extra luck, if you wouldn't mind sharing, I'm more than willing to accept it. Good luck only!

14 Year Old Blew My Mind

2011-12-07T23:36:00.000-05:00

I have to say, I had a pretty good day today.

I had a few issues with my English class yesterday. They're a very enthusiastic bunch and it doesn't take much to get them talking. Do I really need to say that the talking was out of control? Well it was. I discovered that it was because of me. Frankly, I'm not surprised. I'm the student teacher, I'm pretty goofy, I'm pretty chill, I engage with the students sometimes when I shouldn't (in that I make a smart aleck remark that just increases the talking). Before I started anything today I had a talk with them about my expectations. I think I even had the line "when I'm up here, I'm your teacher," thrown in there. It went really well. They seem to have responded well to it. Of course I had to enforce my expectations a few times, but it went well. And as a result the class went well. I'll be honest, I was terrified to make that speech. I don't really know why exactly. I'm knew that I wasn't going to be "mean" or anything like that and I wasn't particularly afraid of them "hating me". I guess it's just intimidating to get up in front of thirty 14 year olds to lay down the law. Thankfully they're great kids and they were, of course, wonderful.

Even my religion class, the one I was really nervous about teaching, went well. I got them to discuss. Or maybe it wasn't me... I don't know. I don't care. They were talking and they were on topic. Plus, one kid is so shy, he rarely says anything. He shared his Christmas traditions with the class. I was expecting him to decline when I asked if he'd like to share. I would have accepted that. But he talked!

And on top of all of that, I came home with much less work than yesterday. I only had one lesson to plan. There were only a few handouts to make up. And I had a stack of free verse poems that the grade nines wrote in homework last night. Here's where my jaw hit the floor. I read all the poems once in the staff room. I was pretty impressed. There were some really amazing poems in there. And not just by high school standards. I got home and I took more time going over them, leaving comments and suggestions. There was one poem in particular, it blew my mind. I can't write poetry like that and I've been writing for a decade. Granted, poetry isn't one of my strengths, but to be fourteen and write like that... I mean, how much writing experience could this kid really have? Mind blown. Beyond amazed. She'd kick my ass ten times over in a poetry competition. It's even more amazing if you consider that I gave them no class time, very little instruction and one day to write it.

So yeah. That's my eloquent conclusion. This is what a good day looks like for a student teacher. At least for this one.

Lauren.

Math is Finally Entertaining!

2011-12-07T00:43:00.001-05:00

I have made it to Thursday! I'm going to live! At least for another week!

I shouldn't celebrate yet... I still have to perform these lessons... And yes, I do mean perform because among the trillion other things teachers are, we're actors/entertainers as well. I wanted a job with variety. I found one. Even with all this new acting training, I still haven't mastered the art of keeping a straight face or not laughing at the super inappropriate-but-still-funny comments students make.

For instance, my AT was helping one of the students with a math problem. They're currently working on calculating the area of circles. The problem she was working on was asking her to calculate the area of the bit in the center of four circles. The red part.

Ignore the square in there... Anyway, my AT drew the red part on the chalkboard first. Then she filled in the two top circles. Instantly, one of the other students shouts out: ha! She added the bottom circles only to be congratulated with a second: ha! She bravely continued explaining the problem, tapping the center of each circle with her chalk at which we were subjected to a third: ha! I'm not talented enough with the tools I presently have to erase the bottom circles, so you'll just have to imagine them away.

When we were discussing this incident later, she admitted that she was trying very hard not to laugh. I was totally gone. I'm wasn't helpful at all. It was at that point in the discussion that I uncovered a secret test, hidden in the math work sheets of local high school students. It is a test that determines whether or not you're straight. Imagine away the bottom two circles. What does it look like? I said boobs. That's where my brain went first. That's not where my AT's brain went.

Yup, today was pick on my AT day. She was also wearing a shirt with a rather unfortunately placed pattern. The shirt itself is very nice. I like the colour. It's a nice dark blue. The unfortunate part is that the shirt is long and the way the pattern (she's going to hate my description of it), a darker blue blob-smudge thing, is placed entices students to ask: "Excuse me Miss, did you have an accident/wet yourself?" Again I was very useful. I burst out laughing and said: "Oh wow, that is unfortunate!" After which I pulled up Photobooth on my computer... yeah... totally helpful.

Hilariously enough, she looked at me and said "I thought you were nice! You're as bad as the students!" I never said I was nice. She assumed it. Usually I am nice, but I'm also a pain in the ass. Those qualities don't always work together in everyone's favour.

Finally! Math class is entertaining!

Lauren.

Enemies: Iron Chef and Meatloaf

2011-12-05T23:26:00.000-05:00

I must have been temporarily insane when I decided that teacher's college was a good idea. The insanity clearly hasn't worn off yet, I'm still here, but I have to be crazy right? My workload just exploded. If I make it to Wednesday all will be well. If I go into some sort of panic induced frenzy before then, well, I'm screwed now aren't I?

Speaking of anxiety, what's the worst thing that can happen to someone trying to plan a lesson at 9:30?

Give up?

Iron Chef.

Yeah, I'm serious. My sister was watching Iron Chef in the living room. I was sitting in the dining room. All I could hear was the intense music that makes it sound like no matter what, you're about to fail at something. Then that crazy little Japanese dude started yelling things and I was like WTF? what's he even saying? And from the basement, my parents were watching some war/Christmas movie. There may have been some German yelling. German doesn't sound nice when it's being yelled. So I've got a psychotic Asian yelling at me, some angry Germans snapping and intense music. HOLY CRAP WHAT'S MY DEADLINE! HOW MANY MORE THINGS DO I HAVE TO DO?!

It would have been funny if it wasn't so unpleasant feeling. I moved to my room and the OMG, OMG, I'm-going-to-pass-out-and-throw-up-and-have-a-heart-attack-and-die feeling went away fairly quickly.

Next on the list of enemies?

Meatloaf.

No, not the singer. Him I can ignore. I mean ground beef moulded into a loaf shape. Why do we do that anyway? Grind the beef down just to remould it into a solid mass? Why is that at all appealing? Beside the point. I love meatloaf. It's a love I do not understand. Meatloaf is wonderful alone, it's wonderful in a sandwich, it's wonderful wrapped in bacon or in a delightful sauce. I don't however appreciate the pain in causes me afterward. DAMN YOU HERNIA AND REFLUX! I ran out of Gaviscon! As Cee Lo Green would say: WHY! WHY! I LOVE YOU! I STILL LOVE YOU! That's directed at the Gaviscon and the meatloaf. Bitches both of them. Leaving me in a lurch... and an acid-burny painful one at that.

I kind of went crazy with the caps today. Forgive me. PLEASE? Kidding. I'm over it now.

Lauren.

Whiplash from Randomosity

2011-12-04T22:58:00.000-05:00

When you buy books at university, it's always with the following in mind:

Can I get away with not buying it?
Can I buy it somewhere else cheaper?
When am I ever going to use this again?
Which to I prefer, soup or KD?

I bought all the books I was required to buy and no more. I often neglected to look elsewhere, much to my detriment. I asked #3 and often the answer was never... but what are you going to do if it's a required text. Thankfully, I wasn't in a situation where I had to ask #4. That may or may not change soon enough.

Sure, a lot of the books I bought went to my sister after I was done with them. We took a lot of the same classes. Others... they sit. And then there are the books I'm glad I bought. Oddly enough, most of them are classical studies books. I majored in English and history in case you needed so perspective.

I can't tell you how many times I pulled out my copy of "Classical Mythology: Images and Insights" by Harris and Platzner. I used it in English, I'm using it now in religion, I've used it for my personal writing. It was one of my most expensive books so I'm quite happy I'm getting so much use out of it. I've given up on putting it away with my other school books. I always go back to get it. I've also cracked open the Iliad more than once after having to read it in its entirety during my first year of university. I wrote a parody of a section of it in creative writing.

Weird isn't it? Greek mythology was all but forgotten for a couple of hundred years, it boomed for a another few hundred and a few hundred years later, I'm trying to understand all the references people from the 1800s were making. Apparently nothing goes completely out of style.

I really wish leggings and sweater dresses would go out of style... and stay there. If I have to look at another girl's crack because her sweater dress is actually a sweater being sorely abused, I might have to burn my retinas. And it's not like you can ignore it either. It's just there. Like "Hey, sup, here's my ass crack." While I admire their courage (or determination) in leaving the house essentially bare-assed, I can't begin to comprehend it. Plumbers have more dignity! Plus, we live in the north! It's cold! I would not enjoy feeling a sub-zero breeze on my nether-bits. Yes, my nether-bits!

See how I worked that in there? Random. Had nothing to do with anything but apparently it had to come out. From books to butts in one transition. Keep up if you can. That's the kind of weekend its been. I lounged, I read, I wrote (lesson plans and PowerPoints) and now I'm off to bed. Let week two begin!

Lauren.

Crap! It's Cold Outside!

2011-12-03T23:39:00.000-05:00

Usually, I love winter. I love being able to put on big comfy sweaters and huddle under heavy blankets. I love leaving the mall after Christmas shopping and no matter how cold it is, I feel grateful because the damn mall is just too friggin' hot. I love it when the trees are covered in just enough snow to look beautiful. I find I notice trees more in winter. I notice them for obvious reasons in the fall, but it's somehow different in winter... more... accidental than naturally occurring I suppose.

Either way, there are limits to my love of this season. I hate being cold. As I'm sure most people do. But when I get cold, I stay cold for a long time. I'm like the element on your stove that you just cannot trust. When I'm cold I stay cold regardless of what the temperature might be set at. Except the elements on your stove, presumably, are on the other end of the spectrum.

I was cleaning my room today and I decided that I needed a bit of fresh air, just to air it out a bit. I cracked open my window ever so slightly. For only having snow since Tuesday, it was damn cold out there! Still, I persevered and regretted it. I spent a good hour trying to warm up but eventually gave in to the most obvious solution. I went and had a shower. The problem with showers is that you eventually have to get out. Because lets face it, we work so hard to prevent wrinkles. Why would anyone want to remain in a situation that would guarantee their premature arrival? It took until supper, but by then, I was cold again. Presently, I'm cowering under two extremely thick blankets, in bed, with socks and numerous other layers of clothing. You're relieved, I can tell. I'm relieved. I'm only starting to get warm again.

So you can imagine what kind of day its been. Aside from being a little uncomfortable, it's been perfect. I curled up, I read, I did a few chores, I organized 'Le Binder' again. I don't know what I was thinking the last time I did it but I must have been on drugs... maybe lack of sleep. Either way, it now makes sense. Tomorrow will have to be more productive. On the bright side, I'll probably be able to stay warm a lot easier if I'm moving about.

Lauren.

Week End Review 1/3

2011-12-02T23:10:00.000-05:00

Week 1 of 3 has come to a close.

Overall I think the week went rather well. I was really worried about the religion class and that's turned out better than I expected. As for English, I get to teach a week of creative writing. So I'm kind of excited about that. The only thing I'm really worried about is my evaluation. It's next Friday and I'm not too sure what to expect. My cousin was evaluated last session and all he really told me was to do my thing. It's easy for him, he has charm to fall back on. I'm just awkward and eventually when you get to know me, my awkwardness becomes kind of charming. Even then it's more of a curiosity thing... like "oh, what's she going to say next?". I've been assured that I'll be fine. We'll see.

An aside to anyone teaching a small religion class, leave hair out of the discussion. I don't know how we wound up on this topic, but one of the girls came in and declared that one of the boys looked like Astro Boy. After we googled Astro Boy we all kind of agreed and laughed about it. (It resulted in him getting the chocolate out of the advent calender so he was fine with it.)

Next, the class cynic decided to jokingly announce that one girl's roots needed dying. Not to be outdone, Roots jokingly shot back that Cynic's extensions no longer matched her hair colour. Astro Boy wisely stayed out of the discussion while my AT declared Roots' claim to be "fighting words". They sort of got into a Bible fight... apparently not the intended use of the Bible. I threatened to break it up using my own Bible. Roots then began laughing and repeating "the power of Christ compels you!". It was quite funny actually.

I don't want to repeat the comment that Cynic made about Twilight and vampires but it was hysterical. Inappropriate but friggin' funny. I hate that I'm not supposed to laugh at these things. Suffice it to say, it involved vampires being dead, lacking blood and the biology involved in Bella and Edward's wedding night.

The things you hear... they'll never cease to amuse me.

Lauren.

Good News Sandwich and the Busy Bee

2011-12-01T23:49:00.000-05:00

I'm tired today and I don't know why exactly. I mean that I'm more tired than usual. Given the late hour, perhaps I'll give you the main points.

I taught the world religion class. I was quite anxious about teaching this particular group. I totally bombed my last lesson with them. And by bombed, I'm talking no redeeming features. While they are all good kids, very well behaved kids, polite kids, they are a difficult group to teach and it's strange going from 30 rowdy, talkative grade nines to 8 (5 today) quiet grade elevens. Still, I'm rather pleased with how things turned out. They didn't seem bored out of their minds. I saw their eyes on more than one occasion. There was even a little bit of discussion going on. And aside from one small miscommunication, I didn't mess anything up! MWAHAHAHA! Tomorrow I'm talking about Beliefs and Christianity. I'm kind of excited!

I also had to race off to the doctor's today. The results of my Upper GI were revealed to me. The good news: I'm not making it up. The bad news: I have a small hernia and reflux! More good news: it's fairly common and provided the pain doesn't get worse and there's no damage to my esophagus, they won't have to operate. She suggested I watch what I eat more carefully, I was given some medication if I'm experiencing a longer period of irritation but otherwise, I can stick to my Gaviscon.

I returned to placement after my appointment and did a bit of prep work. The amount of prep work I got done is the reason I'm still awake.

When I got home, I made the mistake of curling up on the couch with a blanket. I was only going to watch one show to unwind. I swear I was! I ended up falling asleep and waking up about an hour and a half later. So I've been a busy bee since then.

Unfortunately that's all I have to say about today at this moment. Maybe I'll add on later.

Lauren.

The "Lumber Jerks" Connection

2011-11-30T23:12:00.000-05:00

When I was in high school, there was a week when we had four snow days in a row. Today marks two snow days in a row and I do not remember snow days being this boring. Oh my God! One snow day, cool, I can get myself organized, make my plans, get my copies done, not have to wait in line at the copier, not have to worry about looking perplexed at the copier, not having to worry about people staring at me awkwardly as I dance to the beat of the copier... Okay, so two people caught me. They just kept walking. I spent a lot of time with the copier... Don't get any ideas, no clothes were pushed up or down and no body parts touched the copier. Well, my finger did but who cares about that?

Woah tangent!

But I guess that goes to show how exciting the last two days have been.

Today I wrote out grammar work sheets. Woo? Oh, and I finished a handout on grammar. Yeah, that was fun. I ate a sandwich... it was roast pork... my mom made it. She only put mayo on one side. Why? I don't understand that.

Another thing I realized! Okay, I've printed novels before. I've printed three novels, three times. That's a lot of paper. And I felt a little guilty. I don't feel guilty about that anymore. In the last two days I've brought home enough paper to make up at least four novels. The stack on my dining room table (my family had better not touch it or so help me!) is at least 4" high. And that's just work for three days. Where does all this paper go as soon as the semester ends? I assume you all know or remember the answer to that question. How awful is that? I never realized before. We are terrible wasters of paper! THE TREES! THE POOR TREES! I weep for them.

Sorry, it's late and I couldn't find a shorter clip or one that didn't announce that it was an evaluation copy. But if you have ten minutes free and want a chuckle... I hope you enjoy.

Okay, I don't know how much more random I'm willing to get so I'm calling it a night. Night!

Lauren.

Yesterday Today: Placement and Glee

2011-11-30T16:39:00.000-05:00

Alright, well, if this post is posted a day late, I wrote it on time. For whatever reason, blogger wouldn’t let me log in. Let’s blame it on the weather. Speaking of which, the weather here is atrocious. We had our first snow day of the year. As a student, particularly in high school, I tended to go to school even if the buses were cancelled. I was awful at math and I had some problems with science. They were good days to get one on one time with my teachers and ask all the questions I needed to. They were good catch up days. As a teacher, it’s pretty much the same. I don’t feel I got a lot of work done, but I am ahead of where I was yesterday.

Also, I met yet another person related to one of my profs. She’s a lovely person and I found her interesting to talk to. That being said, I need to get the hell out of here and go where only a select few know my name, face, address and GPA. I don’t usually mind knowing people, but this year, the amount of toes I can potentially tread on just makes me wish I were anonymous.

But on to Glee!

I’m actually quite happy with Santana’s storyline. I was in a similar situation with my grandmother just this weekend. The difference is that I didn’t tell my grandma. There’s no point really. Santana has Brittany. I don’t have anyone. It would just be words with no evidentiary support. I don’t feel like potentially alienating someone for words. But it was nice to see Santana moving forward. I also didn’t hate Finn. He was actually a decent guy in this episode. Has been for the last two. I don’t know what’s going on but knock it off! He’s a hindrance to my Faberry! Yeah, I went there. What?

Also, to my female friends: WTF? I have come out to each and every one of you and have you offered to sing and dance to a Katy Perry song with me? No. No you have not. Dropping the ball much? Look up Glee to see how they do it. They do coming out right… They do, they do!

Shelby and Puck = icky.

Coach Beist = don’t fight for a guy who doesn’t know who he wants. Go for someone who wants you and only you.

Rachel: WHY? Idiot.

Quinn = The crazy has not yet begun has it? Can someone deal with her please? Rachel, you’ve got some spare time. (cough! Faberry).

And that’s it for today.

Lauren.

Back at Placement

2011-11-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

Grad school application 1 is gone. It's up to... whoever/whatever runs the universe now.

That's a really crappy introduction, but, that's all I really have to say about that today. And it had to be said. I'm hoping for the best. That's a lie. I don't hope. I remain cautiously optimistic. That way disappointment isn't completely crippling.

On to more enthusiastic topics! I went back to placement today! I must admit, I was kind of excited. It's nice to be back in class after coming off placement, but it's also nice to be back on placement after a long bout of classes. Goes to show that I'm never happy. EVER! Either way, I got a nice reception from the English students. Of course, I was on youtube at the time and one of the boys sitting next to me got quite a chuckle out of it. It didn't matter that I was looking for material for their class. I would get busted. Another girl came up to me and said "Hi Miss Daily!". I was looking at something on my computer so I hadn't seen her come up. I heard her, but it still took about twenty seconds to realize that she was talking to me. I think I looked to my left which is stupid for two reasons: 1) she was on my right and 2) how could there be anyone beside me when I'm against the wall? At school I'm Lauren. At placement I'm Miss Daily. I'm aware that this is in fact my name, but I need something universal to go by to avoid this kind of confusion. The student ended up laughing at me when I jumped and said "Oh, right! That's me!". Points for being smooth?

In religion, they were writing a test so I didn't really get the opportunity to talk to them. I spoke to one kid, he's very nice. And then there was a girl who kept looking at me as if to say: "I'm too bored to melt you with my searing hate rays of death... but if I weren't bored, totally would.". I'm sure she's a lovely person, but I may ask her to wear sunglasses tomorrow when I teach... it freaks me out. Plus, I'd be protected from hate rays. I'm anxious about my lesson tomorrow. I really don't have a clue how it's going to go. At the very least, I'm sure it'll be entertaining. Probably long after the fact but whatever. I'm only 22... statistically I have about 66 years ahead of me.

Finally, I must report that I think something terrifying is happening to me. I think it's an Education thing. I get excited over the strangest things now. For instance, I'm teaching my students punctuation. It so happens that my professor read us a book about the importance of punctuation. It's a picture book but the grade nines will actually be able to understand the more subtle features and irony. So off I went in search of this book. I could not find it in my school library. I was annoyed. I asked for help and we discovered that it just hadn't been put back on the shelf. I was nearly giddy when the librarian put "Punctuation Takes a Vacation" in my hands. That's not normal.

After that, I came home to find a big box on the dining room table. It was for me! I love mail! Except for bills... those the post office could lose. I eagerly opened it knowing that it was my latest book order from Amazon. (As an aside, bravo to Amazon. Amazingly fast delivery.) I may or may not, I'll never admit it, have squealed upon seeing my brand new copy of the Manga Shakespeare version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's a comic book version of the play! I'm going to use it in addition to the written text. So excited! See, NOT NORMAL.

I'm so aware... But that's part of my charm. Right?

Lauren.

Application 1

2011-11-27T22:11:00.000-05:00

It is done! Almost. It is nearly done!

I finished off my grad school application. Just one of them. But still! It's in the envelope, it's addressed, the online forms have been filled out and I am one hundred dollars poorer. All in a day's work. So, March is going to be a busy month. Acceptance/rejection letters will be out. The 73 hour writing competition results will be out. School will be wrapping up. My birthday. WHAT MORE CAN BE CRAMMED INTO A SINGLE MONTH!

Applying came with the usual amount of stress and cursing.

I kept getting kicked back to various pages because I hadn't filled out this section or that section or forgotten to check this or that box. Obviously I accept! DO I REALLY NEED TO CHECK A FRIGGIN' BOX? I tried to pay but the window wouldn't open. I tried again. It wouldn't open. Something about enabling cookies. What was stopping my cookies?

I KNEW IT! BEHOLD YOUR CONSEQUENCE!

MWAHAHAHA! TAKE THAT!

Finally I managed to figure out how to enable these alleged cookies which enabled me to fork over 100$. Following that, I had to print a PDF of my application. The PDF wouldn't open. I tried opening it in a different tab. I tried opening it in a new window. I tried clicking the link repeatedly and with violent poking motions. Oddly enough, that didn't help. As it turns out, it had been downloaded to my downloads file. OF ALL PLACES! Why would I look there?

And I'm leaving out the parts where I had to print my portfolio. The little dude at the counter had no idea what he was doing and the older man in front of me in line was having business cards cut and laminated individually. I then had to buy two envelopes that are roughly twice the size I need them to be. They had small envelopes and large envelopes, but the medium envelope was conspicuously absent. Goldilocks would have been extremely disappointed. It looks quite comical. The envelope doesn't even look half full... So, hopefully the laugh the admissions comity will get out of it will work in my favour.

Tomorrow the actual mailing will take place. Perhaps that won't be an episode.

Lauren.

The Church of Gaviscon

2011-11-27T00:22:00.000-05:00

Eggs are not my friends. They are evil.

Gaviscon is my friend. It is kind and merciful.

Yeesh... I think I've been reading the Bible a little too much lately. Yes, I've been looking through the Bible and Post-it Noting like mad! Mad I say!

It will never cease to amaze me how much I actually remember. And for the stuff I didn't remember, google made looking up those passages very easy. All of this is for the world religion class I get to teach. I'm curious to see how they work out. I've been sitting at the dining room table planning away and every so often, I'll ask my parents a question. They usually end up looking at my like I'm crazy (nothing new) or asking "are you sure you want to do that?". No, I'm not completely sure, but I'm curious to see if I'll be able to get the students talking. They're so quiet it's... it's just unusual. I'm not going out of my way to provoke a reaction, but at the same time, I don't think my approach is... what one would expect. My excuse? I'm a history student. Hopefully I can fall back on that again, and again, and again should things go wrong. Have I mentioned my religion professor at school is the superintendent of the board I'm teaching in? The Catholic board? Yeah... no pressure.

Anyway, the eggs and the Gaviscon! I have no idea why, but I felt like having quiche for supper tonight. I knew it probably wouldn't end well. I knew in my soul. The eggs were on my left shoulder, crying out "Eat us Lauren! We'll be ever so delicious!" while the Gaviscon was on my right shoulder calmly saying "Don't do it man... there is not enough Gaviscon in the world." I did not listen to the Gaviscon.

As it turns out both the Gaviscon and the eggs were right. The quiche was ever so delicious. And right now, the Gaviscon is headed off to battle. No news yet on how the campaign is going. Why do I have to have a crazy acid reflux problem! I love food! Why must love hurt? Ugh... love does scar... you just can't tell because the inside of my esophagus isn't visible. I think it would probably be gross if it was visible so I'm at least grateful for that.

And to tie everything in this post together, I would now like it if everyone could bow their head.

Let us pray. From the Book of Heartburn:

"And the Lord sayeth unto Lauren, 'Eat not the eggs, for they are a food that cannot be tolerated by your sensitive stomach. Trust in the Gaviscon for it shall not lead thee astray. Do not let the eggs tempt thee with promises of deliciousness, for such promises are false as are all promises made my foodstuffs. Only the Gaviscon will keep thee in times of difficulty, sorrow and pain.' May the Gaviscon be with thee."

And also with you fellow sufferers! And also with you!

ps: if anyone in power over at the magic Gaviscon factory is reading this, send more Gaviscon!

Lauren.

Pirates Of the... Blahdiblah

2011-11-26T01:18:00.000-05:00

I'm back to lesson planning. And how I love it. The upside is that I'm going much faster than before. I'm hoping to be fairly ahead before I have to go back to placement. Because last time, let me just say, ridiculous. I am going to avoid a repeat of that organizational catastrophe if it's the last thing I do before Christmas. So that's what my weekend will be spent doing. I spent a good portion of tonight cruising youtube and digging up Bible quotes. Did I mention I'm teaching Christianity?

Tonight however, after my lesson planning marathon, I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 4. I don't remember the long ass title, but you know what I'm talking about. Elizabeth Swan and Will Turner opted out of this one. Instead we followed the story of Jack Sparrow exclusively.

Guess where the story starts. If you guessed with Jack Sparrow being charged with piracy, you'd be right. Isn't that how the other three movies start? There's a scene of rafter duelling (as in the first movie). There's a scene where a ship goes down due to scary monsters (second and third movie). We have the return of Captain Barbossa who will not die. And yes, the monkey makes a cameo appearance. There's a mutiny. There's a magic ship. They sail to a mythical location. There's a dual at the mythical location. There was a war. There's a life and death switcheroo. Honestly, it was a lot like watching the first, second and third movies all crammed together. But without Elizabeth and Will. This time the romantic storyline is fulfilled in part by Jack and Penelope Cruz and in part by some dude and a mermaid. Yes, I did say mermaid. I kind of liked the idea of the mermaid though... Oh! I almost forgot! The Pearl makes its return. Again. It's been lost and Jack finds it! At this point does it really matter that there's also another marooning? ZOMBIE CREW! I forgot about them... see what I mean? The four movies just sort of... blend.

I wasn't overly impressed. There were the classic, slapstick comedy moments. There were tiny interesting bits. But there wasn't enough new or even remotely different content to make this movie good. Entertained? Sure, it was alright. More than that? Definitely not. I wouldn't have bought it. No one ever quits while they're ahead. Why don't people quit while they're ahead? I liked the first Pirates. The following two were... a stretch for me but not bad necessarily. I can't really bring myself to care about this one.

Highlights... Spotting Judi Dench. She was "molested" by Jack Sparrow. Also, Vernon Dursley makes an appearance. That was fun. There were some alright boob shots though I suppose that's to be expected in a movie with about two women (one with a fishtail). The updated Indiana Jones moment was kind of neat.

All in all... nothing special.

Lauren.

Clip Show

2011-11-24T22:52:00.000-05:00

I have to say, I had a pretty good day today. I had a lovely conversation with Veronica. I got my last letter of reference so I can mail off my grad school application by the end of the week. The day, while long, went by rather quickly. And things that should have bothered me, didn't.

Since I was in a good mood, I spent some time considering what I'd be teaching in a week. I get to teach grammar. Yay. How does one make grammar fun? I don't know. I'm still working on it. I asked youtube and this is what I got.

While that's pretty amusing, I don't think the grade nines will know who Dean Martin is. I don't even know who the other guy is and I'm secretly eighty. For a more practical approach, I found the following.

How can you argue with that? It's lovely, really it is, but it's just not quite... what I'm looking for. I turned to Family Guy for assistance.

... (that's all I have to say about that clip)

The quest continues! Yes, I made my blog into a clip show. Because I'm that friggin' talented.

Lauren.

The Alarm Clock Situation

2011-11-23T23:20:00.000-05:00

I've always had an amazing inner clock. I just wake up on time. It's not a routine thing. I just know that I have to wake up at a certain time and I do. Usually an hour or half an hour before I need to. I don't know why this happens, but that's just how I've always been.

Lately I've been very tired and I've been sleeping passed the time I need to be awake. I did discover that I can deploy in twenty minutes but that's not at all enjoyable. I was talking about my recent string of hasty departures and my mom suggested that she could wake me up before she leaves. That sounded lovely. The next morning, I woke up at nine and ran out of the house ten minutes later to catch the bus. My mom forgot. I know she forgot because we never brought it up. Well! I decided that I'd just have to be like the rest of the world and set my alarm. I my cassette/radio/alarm clock for eight o'clock.

Promptly at eight, some dreadful pop song woke me up. Fifteen minutes later, my mom knocked on the door to get me up before leaving for work. I thought it was strange but whatever right? The next day, I again set my alarm. I wasn't prepared to leave anything up to chance. Everything is coming due this week. I have to be there even more than usual. My alarm went off again. Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, my mom came to wake me up.

I spent some time wondering what the hell was going on. Finally, I came to the conclusion that she could hear the music from my radio and would at that point remember that I am in fact still here. She's asked me again if I'd like for her to wake me up. I said yes... we'll see. I've set the alarm regardless.

Otherwise, I have to admit that I feel like an ass. I ran into a friend that I haven't seen or talked to in months and all I could say was, I'll email you. How douchy is that? Yet another downside to BEd. I secretly think our lack of ability to socialize outside of our immediate BEd people is the reason for sections... just so you have some emotional/mental support. How many of my pre-BEd friends have I hung out with this year? One. And what did I do with her? I brought her to my How To Teach History Class. God I'm awful. I was a good friend before this! I swear I was! Come Christmas I'm going to hang out with my former friends until they're positively sick of me. I'm going to try anyway.

That's all I've got for today. I have a few more emails to send and then off to bed I go. Long day tomorrow.

Lauren.

A Pride Incident Beyond Stupid

2011-11-22T22:09:00.000-05:00

How nutso-crazy has it been lately? Very. I missed my own outaversary! For shame!

Well, my outaversary (anniversary of my coming out) was on the 19th of this month... I think that makes four years now. How times flies. It's ironic that my outaversary fell during the week our Pride club was nearly disbanded. Yup, disbanded. This is why I was pissed off yesterday.

One could imagine such a threat coming from the university admin, from some religion-based club... but no. Nope, as far as I can tell, admin and the religious people are either happy that we exist or they don't care. So, who nearly wrecked Pride? The gays. It was an inside job. You know that drama we're famous for? This person dated that person's ex but we're still friends? Apparently vindictive exes and facebook don't go well together. Comments were made, sensibilities offended and voila! Complaints made to the student government and administration. Given that I've been trying (with three other girls) to get a decent Pride group going here for about three years, I was livid that the first real chance we had was being sabotaged from within. It made me remember why I didn't want to get involved in Pride this year.

After much arguing and me getting so angry that I actually stood up and ranted a bit, (I'm told the other execs ranted after I left) everything has turned out alright. We still have Pride but now everyone is walking on eggshells. Lovely isn't it? I'm choosing to believe that it's because I seldom yell or say anything and now they're all scared of me. I prefer that version to what actually happened... talk about stupid.

So, that's why I was beyond angry yesterday. As for today, I had a much better day. The weather, which has finally started to look/feel like winter, was nice. I handed in two assignments. I got a free large pop which was nice even though it resulted in a really urgent need to pee a while later. I have a far more detailed plan of what I'm teaching come Monday. Once I got over being overwhelmed I was happy. There was also this moment that involved a seagull (animal rights activists turn away) who was walking on an iced over rooftop. He was slipping all over the place and it was kind of hilarious. Eventually he got the hang of it and just glided ever so slightly when he took a step forward. That's how tired I was today... I wasn't the only one laughing! On the inside I actually felt a kind of solidarity with that seagull. I knew that if I were in his... feet, that I would look much worse. Rock on seagull! Rock on!

With that, I bid you all a goodnight.

Lauren.

I'm Pissed (in two parts)

2011-11-22T01:20:00.001-05:00

Part 1

Can't blog... too sleepy.

Too much work.

Good day before 9:30... then all went downhill. Lauren ANGRY! Lauren also got to sort of blow up at people which felt good.

Lauren will explain more when she's bathed and slept.

Good morning to you all.
--------------------------------------------------------

Part 2 will be posted at a more reasonable hour.

Well, it is a more reasonable hour. It's now nearing two o'clock in the afternoon. I'm sitting in the cafeteria with two of my friends. We're all wondering why the hell we're still here. Actually, we're watching youtube videos of cute things.

After that we watched a cute bunny. Girl Alex suggested watching a cute owl but I finally put my foot down. The "awwwwwing" is making me nauseous. After I asked her if she was on her period.

Apparently not. We're just all in such a bad mood that we need cute, soft, innocent things to divert our attention.

So... yeah, that's life right now. And while I'm not in a great mood, I'm no longer pissed.

Lauren.

That's my Leg!

2011-11-20T23:45:00.000-05:00

I spent the day doing homework. I know. I'm so exciting it's scary! What's next bungee jumping? Well! I'll have you know that I was working on my Mac and for a while, it wasn't plugged in! And! When I was prompted to start the time machine feature, I turned it down. Now you know. I am a rebel.

Seriously though, I spent a chunk of my day explaining why Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief would be a good resource to incorporate in a grade 11 open history or a grade 12 workplace history. I read the curriculum and explained my opinion by relating parts of the book back to the curriculum expectations. If that doesn't get your motor runnin' wait until you hear what I did next. Was that a shiver of anticipation?

I continued to work on my unit plan. To be honest, I'm a bit upset. We have to adapt a unit plan and my unit plan is awesome! At least the content is. The kids in my class would have loved it! If only I'd had this stupid assignment earlier... Or, perhaps I needed to finish it earlier. I don't remember when he gave it to us. Oh well. Such is life. It won't be completely wasted. If I don't use elements of it on my upcoming placement I'll always have it if I get to teach poetry again.

What with all that interesting blah-di-blah out of the way, I can tell you all of the strange happenings that... happened, during the federation meeting we were forced to attend last Friday (two hours after our last class. Boo!). In a show of style and compassion for my rear end, the powers that be decided this meeting would take place in the gym. They pulled down the old-ass wooden bleachers that are more of a safety hazard than anything else. I shouldn't sink two inches when I take a step forward. I'm not that heavy thank you very much.

Anyway, my back started to hurt shortly after my ass completely went numb. I suppose the girl in front of me was having a similar problem. She leaned back and ended up resting against my leg. She didn't move off right away either. I was just sitting there, staring at her wondering WTF? when she turned and looked at me. Because I'm me all I said was "Hello," in a weird accent. She snorted and got off my leg.

After that, I don't remember what she said to prompt this comment, but I ended up saying "as opposed to lounging on my leg?". I guess she thought that she had something to prove after that. She leaned back again and this time, I don't know why, her head wound up between my legs and she was looking up at me with this smirk... who smirks!? My clever retort to that was "And now you're in my lap". Again she snorted and sat up straight (or maybe not so straight?) and happily out of my personal space. I hate when people get in my personal space when they aren't invited! And I wonder why I'm single... really.

In conclusion, I was uncomfortable, she thought it was funny and I don't know what to make of the encounter. When do I ever know what to make of anything? If it's not in a book I won't understand it without several days of pondering it. (For the sake of not starting rumours, this girl had a boyfriend up until recently. Just putting it out there.)

I will now maturely state that: Girls are stupid-faces! eat some Gaviscon and go to bed.

Lauren.

BA in BEd (End of term phenomenon)

2011-11-19T23:24:00.000-05:00

Some things just don't change. I've been bitching (something that won't ever change) about how I miss my BA. Right now I'd probably be scrambling to finish up assignments and study for midterms. It was always a productive, stressful, reading/writing intensive period. I came to expect it, work with it and even enjoy it. There are few feelings like making it through the last weeks before the end of term. At last something in my BEd is remeniscent of a period in my life I actually enjoyed. I'm fully aware of how weird that sounds but seriously, BA students, you don't know what you've got until it's gone!

Today I finished off two minor assignments. Tomorrow I'll finish off an inappropriately named third assignment and then focus my attention on the lengthy unit plan my Curriculum professor has decided he wants us to write. He kind of reminds me of a leprechaun.. if only he were shorter. He pops up out of nowhere, he's got a very strange sense of humour where you feel you're only getting half of his joke (no matter how clever you are) and he has a violent mind... he's expressed pleasure at the thought of electrocuting us. Either way, when I hand in my unit plan, I'll be finished with all my assignments for the term. After that it's pretty smooth sailing, just a multiple choice test in Spec Ed. I love Spec Ed so I'm not at all worried about it.

Although, this week only marks the end of my... academic classes. I'll be back out on placement for three weeks. I'm a combination of more comfortable and more anxious. I've taught these kids before, I know my way around the school, so I have a better idea of what I'm doing, I have a better idea of what to expect. On the other hand, I'm being evaluated. Which actually reminds me... I should confirm that.

How can I have so many little things to do? I think I'm going to jot down "agenda" on my Christmas list.

By the way, professors, "OPTION assignment" is not an appropriate name for an assignment. Talk about false advertising. Can I sue? It's not an option if I have to do it. Think about that.

Lauren.