Who said TESOL was boring......

#1 Tom: Grammar can be induced.

Dr. G: Can you do that? It sounds like you're giving birth.

#2 Let's eat, Grandpa.

Let's eat Grandpa.

Commas save lives.

#3 When doing a classroom simulation. My friends (the teachers) played a game called pile-up where if a person said yes to an answer they can to get up and sit in the chair to their right (we were sitting in a circle). They know me so I had to move every time and I ended up sitting on top of two boys. Sorry!!! I know that my butt in large. Maybe you just had to be there....

The birthing process

Stare stare stare 10 minutes.

Write 10 words.

Stare stare stare 10 minutes.

Delete 5 words.

Stare stare stare 10 minutes.

Look up something on Google.

Stare stare stare 10 minutes.

Decide you have to go to the bathroom yet again (didn't you know that proper hydration is key to academic writing?)

Come back, write 18 words.

Lather, rinse and repeat. Thusly, a contrastive summary is born.

Life from atop a bicyle

I shall title this first part "How to get strange looks at least 5 times a day"

1. Ride a bike roughly 2.3 miles to school every day.

2. Ride a bike roughly 2.3 miles in the rain.

3. Ride a bike roughly 2.3 miles when it is below freezing.

4. Ride a bike in a skirt.

5. Ride a bike in high heels.

6. Tell people that you have no desire to purchase a car........ ever.

7. Have exotic food in your pantry like lentils and split peas and bulgar.

8. Know how to cook with said lentils, split peas and bulgar.

9. Gleefully freeze your roommate's turkey bones so that you can make turkey stock a couple days later.

AND

10. Think that a thermostat set at 60 degrees is a luxury. That the temperature is perfectly fine because you are wearing wooly socks and complain bitterly when the other roommates turn the heat up to 66 because they want to sleep in shorts and a t-shirt...... in the middle of winter.

Culture of Negotiation

Most of the students in my CIEP class at UNI are from Saudi Arabia and it seems that they have a different set of ideas on tests and test taking. Either that, or they look at me, think easy target and then try to finagle things so that they go in their way.

Recently, they took their final exam and 5 students failed to pass to the next level. To compound the problem, I ended up teaching the same level so they were my students...... again. Most of them, I had no doubt that their levels were inadequate to move up but I had some doubts on a couple so I "allowed" myself to give them another exam. This happened all across the levels because there always is a question of whether or not a capable student bombed the test. It's so hard to create tests that accurately show a students' ability. A couple of my students can communicate very well but they have a lot of problems with writing and grammar and that's what I teach. What I teach is precise (especially at such a low level). It's either right or wrong. No native speaker of English would say that "A lemons isn't sweet. A lemons is sour." is correct.

So I put a lot of time and effort to put together another test and see if the first one was inaccurate. Of course, they tried to cheat. I had taken away their cell phones but I saw that some were trying to compare answers and there was talking done as well. I couldn't keep a really close eye on them because I had four new students to look after and was trying to teach at the same time that the old students were taking a test. NOT AND IDEAL SITUATION to be teaching at the same time as testing.

They whined about the length of the test (4 pages, just like the old one).

They whined that I didn't give examples (the old exam didn't give examples and I ended up giving them a few verbal examples because apparently, they still don't know what "simple present," "present progressive," "singular," and "plural" mean).

They complained that the test included past tense (yes, we quickly went over this but I told them to study it and they are expected to have a good understanding of it for the next level).

At the end of the class, they handed in their exams and one of them tried to get me to check it right then and there. At 5:00........ On a Friday evening........ Of my week of midterms......

I really wish that I could be one of those strict teachers that invokes fear in my students but I'm not so this is what I get. Extra work, extra grief all to tell me that I was right to fail them the first time because they still can't work fluently within the level that they are in right now.

Wonderful fall day

How quickly the weather changes around here. Last week it was below freezing and this week, absolute fall perfection. I should be outside enjoying it but instead I am preparing to cook a fall inspired meal for some friends. It's a sacrifice that I am willing to make. So here's what's on the menu:

Apple and Ginger Pork Chops

Mashed Potatoes

Butternut Squash Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette

Baked Apples

Being a typical menu prepared by me, I've found all of the recipes off of the Internet (minus the potatoes) and have never cooked them before (minus the potatoes). I'm not really worried about the recipes turning out, I'm more worried if they will be all done at the same time.

I'm also a bit worried about school this week because it's midterms and I'm not really prepared. I'm in the middle of a lazy period at the moment and don't feel like doing too much. I'm just going to have to push through it, though, because I won't have a break until Thanksgiving and even that will be filled with papers along with travel.

Anyway, I should go start cooking so that supper doesn't end up being a disaster. We'll see if I remember to take some pictures of the food :-)

More photos from Madison County

I seem to have a problem getting photos to go places that I want them to so I'll just post some separately.

Fun in the snow

Yes, that's right. I said snow and it's barely October. Global warming around here has turned into global freezing. Granted it didn't snow in Cedar Falls, it snowed in Madison County but.....

Anyway, this was the first time that I had been out of Cedar Falls in almost two months so it was a welcome change. I went with UNI's Cultural and Intensive English Progam (CIEP) and I had an absolute blast. The best part of the day might have been when all of the Saudi boys realized that it was snowing outside so that meant that the temperature was a wee bit chilly. It was absolutely priceless. Of course, their horror of the temperature did not deter them one bit from having a bare-handed snowball fight when we took a bathroom break. I wonder who threw the first snowball.....

We started off with a bus tour of a couple of the bridges and some of the surrounding countryside. I feel no remorse in saying that we had the worst tour guide ever. He was old, he didn't say anything interesting and even I had a hard time concentrating on what he was saying. The only thing that saved him is that the Saudis and Asians have a great deal of respect for their elders. Poor Bob, the bad tour guide. You could tell that he really loved his county but when you talk in a monotone voice about how corn silks propagate kernels of corn, I'm afraid you'll loose even the most polite person's interest.

We got to see the famous Roseman Bridge that features prominently in the movie, Bridges of Madison County, and also the Holliwell Bridge, the longest of the bridges in the county. The rest of the time was spent wandering around the local festival with Siyan (Chinese), Renee (Chinese), and Bin (Korean). We ate a lot of food and took a lot of photos because that's what Asian tourist seem to do, take pictures. It was a lot of fun and it was great to see a small town through another's eyes. When you are used to something, you take it for granted and I need to remember that I do love this area of the country even though I don't want to live here forever.

Celebrating the season

Wiped

I took my first exam on Tuesday and ever since then I have been one exhausted ball of, don't want to do nothing which is probably a bad thing considering that I have another exam tomorrow. An exam that will probably be much harder than the one that I already took and that one was bad enough.

Another factor for me being tired is the class that I am teaching. Not because they are horrible students (in fact, today they were nigh on perfect) but because I am such a high energy teacher, who bounces around the classroom like a chihuahua on crack....... in heels.

It is because of this class, though, that I've been studying as much as I have been because it's in the late afternoon so I usually have a decent amount of time with nothing else to do. This means that I haven't been rushing through my homework assignments, that I have studied for the quiz for about 2 hours already, and that I've started doing some supplementary reading in the TESOL field. So despite the physical and mental exhaustion, teaching this class has been really good for me. Not to mention the fact that it pays $13.75 an hour.

Inneresting

I do apologize for my grammar error on my last post. I'm not good at self editing and what is put down on the page is usually just verbal diarrhea that comes directly from my brain. Oops, so sue me.

Today, after studying for FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT I decided to make an appearance at the Sid festival that's sponsored by the Saudi Club here on campus. My conversation partner, Moayad, had invited me and I though that it would be interesting to go. I was only there for about 30 minutes but I got some free food (very good, me likey the sheeps) and was witness to some interesting behavior.

There was a large group of people walking slowly on the lawn, looking down into the grass. Occasionally sifting through it.

Ellen: Guess what they're doing.

Me: Umm, I dunno.

Ellen: They're looking for something that was lost during the tug o' war game.

Me: A ring? That's awful.

Ellen: No, not a ring.

Me: A watch?

Ellen: No, it's something that a ring would be on.

Me: YOU MEAN THEY'RE LOOKING FOR A FINGER?

Ellen: Yes, that's exactly what I mean......

Movin' on up

Had the big, scary meeting today where we found out more information about what is actually required to graduate with the MA degree. My comment, in the meeting, was a question about whether or not I could hide under a rock. It basically boils down to a big big BIG comprehensive exam (6 hours) and a 25-30 page research paper. I'm much more worried about the exam than the paper because there I have to memorize, regurgitate, analyze and apply a shit-ton of information. Not one of the skills that I'm famous for. This also hinges on me not procrastinating and getting on top of things NOW. Again, not one of my strong points.

On the other side of the coin, I am now (temporarily) employed as a teacher again. One of the full-time teachers is on sick leave and I get to teaching grammar, one hour a day to some low level students. I'm very excited about this and hope that it last for a couple of weeks and will lead to other opportunities. Either way starting tomorrow, I'll be earning a bit of dinero. Strange, earning money instead of spending it. I'm not used to that any more as my checking account will attest.

Picture this

Me.

On a bike.

In the pouring rain.

Wearing heels.....

The return of a tradition

Back in Nanchang, I used to host a weekly dinner party at my place. Those Thursday nights of my last term there were some of the best moments. Good friends, good food and good booze always make for a nice time. I haven't had much of an opportunity to do something like that for almost a year now and I have missed it.

So, now that I have the ability to host these dinners again, I've decided to do it about once a month. It's partly because I like to cook, partly because I want to show some of my foreign friends various kinds of American food. Or at least food that they haven't encountered before. I started by cooking Cajun basically because I hadn't had it in ages and I figured that it would be something that they would like. I invited six fellow TESOL grads and was very pleased that they all came. Everything tasted wonderful, we all got slightly drunk and we definitely were a lot less restrained than we are in class.

I'm not sure if these people are my friends yet, not because we don't like each other but because they all seem so busy that they don't have much time for me so I've been struggling with being social again. I want to go out and do things but living away from campus, it's a bit difficult. People don't think to call me to do things and I'm not one to go out to random places in the hopes that I'll meet somebody nice. This all comes down to the fact that I want to have some good friends and I wouldn't mind meeting a boy. I hate the fact that I seem to whine about this constantly but it something that is in my mind constantly.

Sigh, one of these days I'll stop being a social retard.

Wee little happy dance

It's hard to judge how well things are going so far, class wise. I still feel like an idiot most days because I just don't have the wealth of practical knowledge that my other grad students have. And most of them have practical teaching experience too so it's not as though I'm unique in that regard. We hadn't had anything graded up until this week so it was hard to tell if what I was doing was enough and en par with my fellow students.

My first graded assignment was a definition. In my field of study, it is required that we memorize and define several hundred linguistic terms and theories. Yeah, not so much fun since I'm not that good at remembering stuff. My definition was on the Sociocultural Theory and man, this one was difficult. I did my best though I thought that is was complete rubbish, and turned it in. We got the definitions back yesterday and to my complete surprise, I got a perfect 5 out of 5! I was just hoping to get more or less the same grade as the others but I actually did a bit better :-D

Of course, then we took an ungraded quiz and I got the lowest score in the class but that's besides the point....

Ayudame...

Anybody have suggestions on how I can focus better on my reading? I just spend the last 30 minutes reading 15 pages in a textbook and I can seem to recall much. My eyes read it, it goes into my brain for a brief time, and now that I try to recall it, it's pretty much a blank. I hate feeling stupid.

On a more interesting note, I was talking to one of my fellow TESOL grad students and out of nowhere she told me that she liked my nose. Now, she's from the Ukraine so perhaps over there they have an appreciation for bird-like noses. I dunno and frankly, I was taken a little aback but since I am not one to turn down a compliment...

Wruak?

Is the second day of classes too soon to second guess your ability to handle graduate school? Especially since 3 of the 4 classes are taken with undergrads so are technically easier than other classes? Wow, I must confess to being overwhelmed and wondering how I will be able to do all of this in the short period of time that I am allocating for this degree. Perhaps it would be easier if I had some academic knowledge of ESL but I don't. I have practical knowledge but that isn't going to do me a lot of good in most of these classes.

Plus, I'm beginning to suspect that I know nothing about writing a good paper. I rarely used journals for my BA and I'm pretty sure that I used them incorrectly. I feel like such an idiot compared to some of the other students in the class. On a side note, they all seem to be very helpful and we even had a group study thing this afternoon.

And to further expound on the niceness of my fellow grad students, they all have done things with their lives that make them pretty interesting. There are only 6 of us that are first years but half are foreign (China, India but with Tibetan roots, Yugoslavia). The other 3 (myself included) have all done a decent amount of travel and living abroad. AND I have an invitation to visit Siyan's home in Sichuan. I might just have to take her up on that at some point. I don't know when but I am rambling on about traveling again and I really need to stop that.

In conclusion, things are going well but I am overwhelmed and have a feeling that I will be for some time. I wish to do well and to earn the regard of my professors but am thinking that I will have to make an idiot out of myself first.

Be still my aching arse

I have come to the conclusion that I am a wimp. Both my mind and my body are exhausted because I have had one class and have been biking around Cedar Falls. Cedar Falls has hills. Certainly more than where I grew up but not like the hugh .5 mile 10% grade monster that I went up in Mankato. Granted, I only biked to work less than 10 times before succumbing to the lure of being a lazy American again. I blame the hill (but that's only an excuse to make myself feel better).

Here, I have no choice or at least not a viable choice. There is a bus system but I haven't figured it out yet and it's a bit expensive on my budget. Of course, my budget stretched enough to buy some pretty yarn but that's not the point here. The point is that this is good for me even though right now, it's exhausting to have to bike everywhere. Campus is a good 2.5 miles away, the grocery store is 2 miles in the opposite direction (can't even cheat there and get food on my way back from class), the library and yarn shop are in the general direction of campus but further north.... you get the idea. Everything is within biking distance but not easy biking distance.

And while there are plenty of recreational bike trails, this isn't a very biker friendly town for practical use. There are many busy streets and not all streets have sidewalks. I think that I'll slowly get it all figured out; the ways that are safe and not too far out of the way. It will be strange to be so confined to what I'm willing to bike to, though. One thing is for certain; buns of steel might finally be in my grasp ;-)

Oh! The horror!

I had an interesting time at work last week Friday and as always, interesting means painful or disgusting. First of all, it was that special time of the month for me. Sorry to all my male readers but this plays a very part in THE STORY. It's not horrible every month but this month....

Desire to walk around with my hands on my back. CHECK

Ovaries slowly eating their way through my belly. CHECK

Intense nausea. CHECK

Basically all the things that I get, I had very badly. Except for the violent mood swings. Those missed me this month.

Anyway, the morning didn't start off too terribly as far as symptoms go, but as the day went on they kept getting worse and worse. By lunch time, I was in a world of hurt and just wanted to curl up into a ball and hide somewhere. Of course, I can't really do that with my job but I really wanted to. I was dusting something somewhere and I get the dreaded phone call.

Umm, Nadine? There's a pile of dog poop in the mail room. Can you come clean it up?

Thinking, thinking <<>>

I manage to drag myself to the mail room, take one sniff, and promptly decide that this is NOT DOG POOP. IT'S PEOPLE POOP. The poop bandit had struck again. And not just a little poop, a big pile of poop, in the mail room, which is across the hallway from the bathroom. Explain that one to me.

Added to the horror, was the fact that another resident had failed to notice the BIG PILE OF STINKING POOP in the mail room, had stepped in said poop, and tracked in back towards the bathroom and into the dining room. Seriously, dude, this was not a small pile of poop and did I mention that it smelled foul?

Paper towels served only to pick up the massive amounts of wet poop on the carpet. Rags (which I then threw away), proved no match for the stain. Whimpering, I drug out the carpet cleaner in order to get rid of the stench.

Folks, this was horrible. I almost vomited. I wished to smear the poop covered rags upon the person who made me clean this up. I didn't, but the thought did cross my mind.

And finally, once the mess was all cleaned up......

Umm, Nadine? Would you mind cleaning up in the dining room? Somebody vomited on the floor....

Those of you who aren't cat people....

are CRAZY because nobody that I know, could refuse cuteness like this.

Yum!

I wonder if anyone can tell that I've been bored lately. This is the second day IN A ROW that I've managed to post and who knows, I might walk on the wild side and post again later tonight. Now that I'm happier, it's easier to post things that don't make my (2) readers freak out and think that something is going wrong in my head....

Anyway, tried out another new recipe and both sister and I agree that it's fabulous. Very tasty and perfect for those of you who have way too much zucchini to use. So here goes, my first actual recipe that I've posted on this here blog:

Chile and Zucchini Quesadillas

2 ancho or pasilla peppers, or 1 tsp chili powder
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 small zucchini, sliced into 1/4 rounds (I used 2 zucchinis)
s&p to taste
4 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, grated
2 12-inch flour tortillas
2 Tbsp sour cream
Your favorite hot sauce

1. If you're using ancho or pasilla peppers, soak them in hot water for 30 minutes. Then drain them, seed them, and chop them fine.

2. Heat 1 Tbsp of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. add the garlic and the zucchini. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and the chili powder, if you're using it. Saute the zucchini, stirring often, until it softens, about 5 minutes. Transfer the zucchini to a plate.

3. In the same skillet over medium heat, heat 1/2 Tbsp oil. Add one tortilla. Sprinkle the cheese and chopped chiles, if you're using them, evenly over the tortilla. cook until the tortilla crisps and the cheese melts, about 3 to 4 minutes. Place the zucchini rounds on the cheese, then top with the second tortilla. Slide the quesadilla from the skillet onto a plate, and invert it onto a second plate. Add the remaining oil to the skillter, then slide the flipped quesadilla back into the skillet. Let the quesadilla brown well on the flip side for 3 to 4 minutes.

4. Remove the quesadilla to a cutting board, and slice it into quarters. Place two pieces on a each plate, top them with sour cream, and pass the hot sauce.

*** This will serve two.

Now, I have made this twice (had to get rid of the cheese, ya know?). The first time I used cayenne pepper because we were out of chili pepper. I LOVED it but sister spend a lot of time fanning her fried taste buds and blowing her nose. The second time, I used chili powder and she liked that much better so pick your poisen and know that you have options.

Buen provecho!

***This recipe was taken from the fabulous book Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons. Absolutely love this cookbook and would steal it from sister if I thought that she wouldn't notice ;-)

Really? You this THIS is gross?

I was feeling a bit ambitious on Sunday so I decided to make eggplant Parmesan. I already had a teeny tiny little itty bitty eggplant from my garden and had been wanting an excuse to decimate my fresh basil supply. I found the recipe online (of course) and with a little help from sister who served as my clean hands while frying the eggplant, we had a truly delicious supper. It's amazing what 7 or 8 simple ingredients can do for one another.

The next day, I brought the leftovers for lunch and proudly heated them up. One of the nurses (she's really nice just very... typical for this area), curled up her nose at my lovely dish.

What is that?

Eggplant Parmesan.

Really? It looks gross. What's in it?

Basically tomato sauce, mozzarella, parmesan, basil and eggplant.

What's eggplant? How does it taste?

It's a purple globe-like vegetable that doesn't have a strong taste. Would you like to try it?

Nuh-uh. No way. You go ahead and eat it.

Ok, but it's just Italian food.... If you like mozarella.

I do.

And tomato sauce.

I do.

Then you will probably like it.

No thanks. I'll just eat my turkey sandwich.

End of conversation about my disgusting looking eggplant parmesan but here's the kicker, this lady thinks that it would be great fun to visit both Africa and China someday. Honey, you'd better buy some stock in KFC because if you refuse to eat eggplant you won't be eating much of what is offered in those two places.

Sheesh.

Da........birds da birds da birds

At work, since it's an old folks home and they like these sorts of things, there is a bird atrium. It's lovely, the residents love looking at the *pretty* birds and everything is just hunky dorey dandy.

Until you ask yourself the simple question, who has to clean the lovely bird home full of shite and feathers? I think you know the answer to that one. Once I week I risk the possibility of loose birds (never happened) and getting shat on (happened once) just so that appearances are kept up.

This week, going along as usual. Nothing is wrong, clean a few windows, look around again and suddenly...... uh ooh, man down! We have a dead bird in the cage. Poke poke. Is it really dead? That would be an affirmative. Oh well, grab a paper towel and pike up the poor, dead birdy and into the trash it goes.

Later on that day..... I tell Mr. Boss Man about the bird and he starts freaking out. Apparently, if an adult bird dies they need to keep the corpse for evidence. Evidence for what I do not know. Luckily, I had yet to empty out my garbage so I had the lovely task of digging trough dirty you-don't-want-to-know in order to find the birdy.

Enough said, bird found, bird given to slightly strange boss, peace, out.

Limited palates

Last Thursday was treat day at my sister's place of employment and since she asked nicely (and I had nothing better to do), I decided to make some cookies. After all, it only takes me about 30 minutes to bake a few dozen and like most things IT'S NOT THAT HARD. Anyway, you know me. I just had to bake something slightly out of the ordinary. I made...... lavender cookies. The batter was fantastic, the cookies divine so how did they go over? I think 2 people ate them. One, said that they were yummy and the other though that somebody had put Italian seasoning in the cookies. Really? Italian seasoning? Some people..... just don't know how good experimenting can be.

Life with cats

Miss Baily does not like air blown upon her face AT ALL so of course I have to do it one a regular basis. The picture is what happens when she's all content. She stretches her paw out just like that. Then you have been claimed and you must not move. She demands that you not move and be content as her personal lap warmer. Ahh, such a pincess :-D The yellow one in a poopkin ;-)

"Bountiful" harvest

Sorry for the hiatus. Granted, about 3 people read this so it hasn't really mattered much. Life around here has been much the same as it always is except that I've been in a terrible mood lately. It seems that I have the July blues and since I've been reading blogs from other people that have been saying that they are experiencing the same feeling of blahness, I'm not the only one feeling this way.

I'll write more about my family weekend and my time down in central Iowa on another day but right now I just wanted to share about my garden. It's growing. Not as much or as quickly as I would like but I am slowly starting to get edibles. Today I harvested some baby swiss chard, some green beans, sugar snap peas AND one teensy tiny jalapeno. My dreams of a hugh Chinese stir fry were dashed until I remembered the farmer's market.

And what else has been growing around here? Flax seed....... in the bathroom sink.....

Sane, saner, sanest?

One of these days I'm going to have to write out a conversation that occurs between two people. Or should I say one person and a cat that is using a human interpreter. They are quite amusing (at least to us) and lend an entirely new perspective to the human cat relationship. Either that or my sister and I are crazier than the Mad Hatter played by Johnny Depp.

Life has been rather cranky lately. Methinks that the hot weather has brought out all of my temper and angst issues. Be grateful that Sister is understanding and has not tried to kill me just yet. I'm in a better mood today but then again, the weather is at a much more reasonable temperature. Work is still my major source of angst and there really isn't a good reason for it. Little things that don't really matter have greatly been pissing me off and making me feel like a bad person. Even the slightly larger paycheck didn't make me smile (I had worked an extra day in that pay period). I have to work one more day then I get a couple off. Very needed and since I'll be visiting the craziness that is the Healy ranch, I'm sure to have a couple of good days off and be able to come back to Mankato in a better frame of mind. There will be ponies, good food and people that I really enjoy being around.

I've yet to really talk about knitting on this blog so I shall mention it now. I knit. I'm a nerd. End of story...... I shall blame my sister-in-law for this latest expensive hobby, just like I blame Jekka for the pony addiction ;-) I'm really not that good yet but I've managed to put together a few scarves and some socks. I recently finished a pair of socks that turned out pretty well. I made them for a friend so I don't know whether or not they fit. Here's hoping that they will. Now, I'm working on another scarf but this one looks more like lace. The beginning was a bit rocky because the pattern was all sorts of messed up. Really, the pattern was messed up. I had nothing to do with it. I'm not completely incompetent. Anyway, I made a few small changes after having 3 false starts and not the scarf is almost halfway done. Pretty good for starting it only about 1.5 weeks ago, no? And one of these days, I might get around to posting a picture but I'm feeling lazy at the moment and I will probably forget about it.

Another fun thing to happen to me is that I actually won something. Actually, I won a couple of somethings. I frequent some blogs that deal with herbs and the nice things that you can make with them (ie soaps, deodorants, lip balms). All homemade, natural products that I wish I could buy but really can't afford. Anywho.... there have been some contests where you leave a comment and are entered for a chance to win whatever they have put up. Folks, this week I've won on two different sites. Maybe my family's notorious bad luck has skipped me. No wait, pretty sure that I have the bad luck. I was the only one to enter one of the contests and had a 1/20 chance on the other one. Plus, the ONE time I played the Powerball, I won jack diddly squat. Nevermind, I am continuing in the tradition of being a bad luck carrier. Be glad that I don't have children. This afflication should not be passed onto the next generation. Sorry, W and O! Hopefully your mommy's luck is enough to overcome you daddy's ;-P

Oh yeah, apparently 26 years ago I was born...

So, happy birthday to me. A big thank you to all of you who called, emailed or Facebooked. Those one liners meant a lot to me and remind me that I do have a lot to be thankful for, even when I whinge a bit. I am reminded that while I may not be rich in the monetary sense (yay students loans and Discover card!), I am very rich in friends. I have people that I can friend on three different continents. People that I don't see very often but when I do, it like we had seen each other yesterday. No, I don't hear from all of you every day but that doesn't matter. To be a friend, you don't have to be in constant contact.

I regret very little in my short 26 years here on earth. About the only thing that I do regret is my inability to manage money. And I'm working on that. I have goals that can only be reached by saving money and paying down the debt that I do owe but it will be done. Just give me about 20 years in which to do it.

I don't regret what I've studied or the places I've gone because they have made me into the person that I am today. I think that I'm ok and other people seem to think so too. I've been dealt some hard knocks but I'm working on them and eventually, I'll be where I want to be in life. I don't have grand monetary goals but I would like enough money to travel often, to have a pony or two and to have a bit of land to call my own. So while in some ways, I am a far different person than who I was when I was a young, Iowa farmgirl, in other ways I haven't changed at all. I guess that my parents done raised me but good.

Do you hear what I hear?

That sound you hear, it's my sister.


She's screaming, because I left her a few dishes to do.


And by a few, I mean.....






What?!?! Doesn't anybody else do this to their sisters on a regular basis?

Dinero in mi pocketo

How's that for Spanglish? As of today, I am $5.16 dollars richer in my pocket. How does that work? Well, as I'm bopping about at work I usually stumble upon loose change. Usually, I give a little squeal of joy, clap my hands and run to pick of that penny that NO ONE ELSE cares to pick up. Hey man, those pennies and other bits have added up for me. You don't notice it at the beginning but down the road.... Then, I have 3 rooms that I clean that generally give me tips. Again it's a dollar here or there but since I usually get about $3 a week, it adds up. The loose change goes into my wallet to be used but the tips I have started to save for my eventual move. Baby steps will get me to where I want to be in life. Hopefully I don't die before I get to where I wish to be.



Pita bread turned out fabulously last night and I have the pictures to prove it. Again, it was a little bit of work and a lot of waiting but definitely worth it. Both Sister and I enjoyed our gyros. Aren't you just a tiny bit jealous that I live with Sister and not you? See, I like cooking and really enjoy doing stuff like this. Not every day but frequently.

Meh...

Sorry that my life is boring at the moment so that I have nothing to write about? I shall have to fix that by going on a drunken rampage or moving to yet another foreign country so that you all may laugh at my antics. So what can I write about?

School update:

Never finished the application to MSU so that school is definitely out. Of the other two, Pennsylvania is topping my list at the moment BUT I'm still waiting to hear from UNI before making that decision. This could take a bit since I got an email late last week from them telling me that they still didn't have my letters of recommendation. What?!?! Pretty sure that those were mailed to you but here, let me bother my recommenders YET AGAIN so that you may have those every so important pieces of paper. That's all sorted now so I should be hearing from them in 2-3 weeks. Yay, for procrastinating which will leave me absolutely no time to register for classes, get financial aid sorted out and hopefully, I can still get into the on-campus apartments because I sure as hell can't afford to live in an apartment. Does anybody know of a couch that I can live at in Cedar Falls in a pinch? Seriously, need to start thinking of a back-up plan just in case I can't live on campus (and I refuse to live in a dormitory with freshmen).

Work update:

The boss knows that I will be leaving so he's starting to nag me about when I'm going to have my last day. I dunno... sometime in August? Trust me, I'll let you know as soon as I can. I'm not that rude. Plus, the annoying co-worker's father-in-law past away so I worked an extra 8 hours this week. I was really hoping for overtime but.... I'll take what I can get. Hopefully, she still takes the two days off next week so that I can get an extra 12 hours in next week. Need money.... unfortunately, that requires work. Now, if only I could convince them to take even more time off of work.... then we may be getting somewhere.

Food update:

Didn't do much cooking last week since I spent some money on yarn. Not an excessive amount but still enough to put me over budget. However, on Saturday I rolled up my culinary sleeves and prepared a true Iowan recipe. Pork chops? Sweet corn? A casserole? Nope, compliments of Chef Paul Prudhomme, I made Iowa Blue Satin Soup. A true Iowan recipe as it uses Maytag blue cheese. The result? Meh, good but nothing fantastic. Still, it was fun experimenting and I will eventually make all 4 recipes from Iowa that are in his Seasoned America cookbook. Because I'm a dork like that.

And now I'm off to bake my homemade pita bread because tonight....we'ze having gyros :-D

Laundry Day in the Apartment

Going along with the idea that waste is a bad thing and saving money a good thing, Sister and I have been washing our clothes by hand for a number of months now. Or rather, I've been washing the clothes by hand and Sister has been more of a spectator. I suppose this is logical because I (surprisingly) and more of a homemaker and she does work 40 hours a week whereas I work 28. Moot point and I digress. 

It hasn't been too hard to do and I find it rather soothing most days. We use a couple of 5-gallon buckets, one for wash the other for rinse, and nothing but my own two hands for the entire process. I usually soak the clothes for a bit before agitating them for about 5 minutes. Then I squeeze as much soapy water out of the clothes that I can, toss it into the rinse bucket and repeat. It only takes me about an hour to do all the laundry that has accumulated during the week. The clothes are then placed on a couple of drying racks and by the next day, the clothes are usually dry and ready to wear. 

Yes, it does take a bit more work than just throwing it in the washer/dryer BUT I figure that I'm using roughly 1/3 of the water and absolutely nothing for electricity. I only wish that we could hang the clothes outside so that they would have that nice, outdoorsy smell. And this is much better than hauling the clothes down 3 flights of stairs, putting them in the car, driving to the laundromat, doing the clothes, putting them back in the car, hauling them BACK UP 3 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS and then putting them away. And there's the added bonus that this saves us $10.00 every week since laundromats are so freaking expensive. 

Innocent bunny wabbit?

Ahh, the innocent cottontail. So cute, so fluffy AND














So deadly for my poor garden. In a matter of days, almost all of those green sprouts have been destroyed by those bundles of cuteness. So sad, especially for my wallet. They even ate the eggplant down so far that I could hardly find the location where I had planted it.

What do I do now? Take out my AK 47 and blast the little suckers to the underworld where they belong? Buy a viscous attack dog that chases both them and the poor unsuspecting residents of Keystone all over tarnation?

Nah, I just bought 50 feet of chicken wire so the I could double wrap a layer of protection around my little garden so that it now looks like the bunny version of Fort Knox, except that it's meant to keep the wabbits out, not it. I also said a tearful goodbye to those plants that had bit the dust. But may this be a warning to future bunny wabbits who are eying my peppers with delight, should you succeed in eating my peppers again, retribution shall be in the form of pepper spray. Mwuah hah hah.................. (evil laughter)


PS For all of you who care, the concussion has tamed down and do longer gives me dizzy moments although I've had a series of rather nasty headaches all week :-(

Only special people can do this

It was my weekend to work so that meant that on Sunday, I had the privilege of hauling out the big, battery operated floor vacuum. I actually don't mind pushing the 40-pound bohemouth up and down the 3-storied building that is Keystone but you do tend to get a bit of a workout. Anyway once I was done, I took it down to the basement to clean it out. I reach down to get something, stand up rather quicKly, and WHAM! My head hits the side-bar that's attached to the dumpster so that the garbage truck can pick it up. I put my hand to my head, no blood. This is good. I have a bit of a headache but nothing majorly wrong so I go back about my business.

Skip to later on that night. I'd been at the library then cooking so I hadn't had a lot of time to sit down but once I did, the nausea set in. Whoa, dude... what's wrong with me? I asked. Told my sister about the knock on the head, she promptly googled something and voila! Priognosis is that I managed to give myself a (very) mild concussion complete with nausea, headache and a we bit of dizziness when I stood.

So I felt like crap most of the evening but you'll be happy to find out that other than a really large bump on my head, I feel just peachy keen this morning. *Note to self: dumpsters are made out of metal, not fluffy pillows.

We trying for a lot more homemade in our lives

I guess that I've been pickier about my food for awhile now. Ever since China where I was eating fresh, yummy food every day. I'm trying really hard to know where my food comes from and what stuff has been put in it. Many will argue that the advancements we've made in agriculture make things easier and better for both us, the consumers and the farmers but I would have to disagree. I'm scared when I look at a label and don't know what half the ingredients are. No, high fructose corn syrup isn't bad for you in moderation but man, do they ever sneak it into things that you don't expect. So, I'm trying to be as self-sufficient as possible considering I'm living in an apartment. There are the window boxes full of herbs, the garden that was just planted, and now my desire to make tortillas from scratch. It really wasn't that difficult, probably because Sister has a Kitchenaid mixer and though, I didn't get the recipe quite right (the tortillas were more like pie crust.... too much shortening) I'm very much encouraged to try again.


Also, I've been wanting to try my hand at canning too. I remember having a lot of fun canning mountains of produce as a child. I'm sure that my mother has rather different memories but it was fun for me and that's all that matters ;-) I really do prefer homemade jams but buying at the Farmer's Market just isn't possible on my $50 a week budget. So Sister advertised for free berries, rhubarb and produce in Freecycle.com and now we have rhubarb! I picked it yesterday, bought some strawberries that were on sale and voila! We now have lots of strawberry-rhubarb jam! Haven't tasted it yet but I'm sure that it's fantastical :-)

Onions and peppers and beans, oh my!

Been thinking about it for awhile but now it is finally done. I have a (small) garden!!! Doing a little happy dance as we speak :-)) It's not big and the plants are really tiny but I have big hopes for it, come late July and August. As of right now, we've planted two different bean varieties, sugar snap peas, jalapenos, two different bell pepper varieties, an EGGPLANT, green onions and lots of carrots. All very useful vegetables and with the exception of the eggplant, should all can pretty well.

The garden is at the place where I work and I only got it because I schmoozed the guy who the garden was tilled for. I asked really nicely and will happily share with him some of the produce because I'm nice like that. The only thing that I worry about with the garden, is whether or not it will produce before I potentially move. I don't know whether or not I'll go somewhere else for grad school yet but if I do, I'll have to move by mid-August at the latest. That gives me roughly 75 days to get everything harvested or all the money that I just invested will go poof. Oh well, it was fun to plant and shouldn't be too hard to maintain.

Another happy dance

Got my acceptance letter for Vermont today :-) I've now been accepted into two of the four programs and I should hear from those schools in a couple of weeks. I think that the hardest part will be choosing which school to go to. It will probably end up being based on how rich I feel at the moment of decision or how much I hate Mankato at that moment. It's a highly scientific method. 

Memorial Day weekend

Having the weekend off and a desire to see my family meant that Kristi and I trekked down to the Des Moines this past weekend. The fact that it was Memorial Day weekend didn't really mean much since I had to be back by Monday so that I could work. C'est la vie but it would have been nice if I had had the Monday off as well. It's only about 200 miles from here to there but if you drive there and back in a short span of time, you tend to be really sick of the car by the end of it. Especially since mumsy decided that she wanted to go down a bit sooner than Daddy was able to. This meant picking her up in Worthington, MN which is only about a 30 minutes drive for them but it added 1.5 hours of driving time for us. Whatever, since she did give birth to me and I'm vaguely remembering all those times that somebody had to drive my butt to/from college, airport, train station.... Did I mention that I really love my family sometimes? The added time also meant that we rolled into Des Moines at about 11pm, which is about an hour after my usual bedtime. Sad, but true. We reached the outskirts and asked mumsy where our hotel was and this is how the conversation went:

Us: Where's the hotel? We're in Ankeny.

Mumsy: It's the Day's Inn in Urbandale.

Us: Where in Urbandale (Urbandale is a part of the Des Moines metro area and isn't exactly small)?

Mumsy: I don't know. Start naming off some streets.

Us: Uh..... 86th? Merle Hay? Um..... (I've been to Urbandale many times but am more familiar with the landmarks than I am the street names)

Mumsy: Yeah, Merle Hay! I think it's Merle Hay or the street that comes in diagonally from the west.

Us: Those roads are nowhere near each other. Didn't you write down the driving directions?

Mumsy: I did but the paper fell out of my purse.

Us: Aargh!!!

Mumsy: Fine, I'll call but I don't want to. I can't understand him. Hello? Yes, where are you? Huh? What? Pardon? I'm sorry, I can't understand you, here's my daughter.

Me: Hello?

Hotelier: Yes, we are the America's Best Value Inn on ------- Street.

Me: Which street? (he did have a bit of a thick accent, not his fault but it made things more difficult)

Hotelier: ------- Street, you take exit 126, turn left and it's the ----- stop light

Me: exit 126, turn right, then what?

Hotelier: first, second, tird stop light

Me: Tanks, I mean thanks

End converstation and thanks to his directions, we made it to the hotel without any more problems. Mumsy, note the fact that it wasn't the Day's Inn NEITHER was it on Merle Hay. It was on Douglas which is basically in the opposite corner of Urbandale.

On Saturday, we spent as much of it as we could out and about doing fun things. Much of the morning was spent at the downtown farmer's market which is FREAKING AWESOME. I encourage anyone who lives within an hour of Des Moines to go. There wasn't much by way of vegetables there but they had plenty of cheese, honey, clothes, food stand and artisans. I was in heaven and it was very hard not to buy everything in sight. You'll be very happy to hear that I only picked up some flax seed and some El Salvadorian dish that ended up being my lunch. Brother and his family then headed back to their place for nap time while Mumsy, sister and I did a bit of shopping. Sister found the deal of the day when she purchased a 12 piece All-Clad pot set for $300, about $400 lower than the original price. I bow down to her superior bargin hunting powers. We then went to the used bookstore in Urbandale, always a favorite place for both Kristi and myself (Mumsy parked her butt and happily looked at house decorating books). I sold some more books (tear) for $35 and Kristi bought a couple of history books. Lastly, we went to Penzy's Spices to pick up black pepper and curry. It's always a treat to go to Penzy's. I spend a lot of time smelling the various spices and wishing that I had more money to buy them all.

Later on that evening, I picked up a 6 pack of beer for brother and I to share. It was sitting on the floor and my 22-month old nephew happened to pick up a bottle.

Will: Pop?

Me: No, it's not pop.

Will: Daddy's beer (said with certanty)

Needless to say, we bust out laughing and I'm still in awe of how smart he is since he's not even 2 years old yet.

On Sunday, sister and I elected not to go to church and instead went wandering around the Terrace Hill district of Des Moines. Terrace Hill is the historic residence of the governers of Iowa and is pretty nice to look at. We wanted a closer look but sadly, were run off the grounds by a highly protective, puppy of a State patrol man aka cop. Sheesh, I didn't know that the governer still lived there. In retaliation for the indignity, sister and I picked some dandelion puff balls and blew the seeds on the edge of the perfectly manicured lawn.

That's about it for my weekend. All in all, it was a fun time and I greatly enjoyed it. Sorry about the lack of photos but I forgot my camera in Mankato. Oops! My bad :-)

Riding the woes away

I had a really horrible day. Everything seemed to bother me at work and that made for a nice depressive funk. First of all, my co-worker really is an idiot. She doesn't have a brain in her head and proves it constantly. I spent a good portion of my morning cleaning windows that she had already cleaned. She has neither the brain cells nor the work ethic to clean windows well. And to make matters worse, my boss blamed me for her crappy job. I explained to him that it wasn't my fault and that he should take it up with Shirley. I really hope he did and oh, to be a fly on that wall. That would make my day.

Then, I get in trouble with the assistant administrator for doing something that my boss told me to do. The carpet was dirty, so I took out the carpet steamer and cleaned it. Apparently, it was too noisy for those who spend their works days jabbering way on the telephones. APPARENTLY, I should come in a 2:00am so that I don't disturb them at their work. At least I was working. Go yell at Shirley for wasting the precious company time and money. She's very good at that.

Anyway, bad mood meant that I didn't feel like cooking for once so my sister suggested that we ride our bikes to the Taco John's in North Mankato. I suppose that it's about 4.5 miles from where we live but there is a really, really, REALLY big and long hill that we had to go up. Needless to say, I ended up walking about 2/3 of it but the way down. Oh the way down. Now that was a lot of fun. It was the best 4 minutes that I've had in a long time. I'd guess that I was clocking around 35 mph. It was fast enough to make my eyes water so that means it was pretty freaking fast. It put a smile on my face. I hope that it stays there.

Home Improvement version 1.0

    The chaos
    The slave
  The cat
 Yay!! For the 1st time in 4 months, I sleep on a bed!!!

About a month ago, my sister and I were on the subject of my sleeping arrangements. I had been sleeping on her couch, which was all fine and dandy when it was cold out but now that it was going to get warmer..... sleeping on synthetic fabric from the 1970s was just not going to be a comfortable option. She suggested that we buy a bunk and bed. I hemmed and hawed until she said that she would buy it :-) Score!!! So up to the IKEA in Minneapolis we traipse to purchase a bunk bed. 

I love IKEA. It was my first time there and I greatly enjoyed it. I really wanted to get peel and stick wall art but somehow, I think it would have ended up in the digestive tracks of certain cats, who shall remain nameless <<>><<>> Anyway, I fell in love with their simple, modern yet very clever furniture. I see why they have become a success story and will continue to get stuff from them in the furniture. IKEA also sends Kristi's organizational heart into palpitations. 

We got back from Minneapolis too late to get started but the next day..... oh boy, was that fun. We live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building and getting that thing up the stairs was interesting. We got it up about halfway, lots of cursing involved before we decided to screw it, rip open the box and carry it up in more manageable pieces. Then it was onto the assembly and Kristi did a marvelous job of it, I only helped when she needed an extra set of hands. It took a couple of hours but was worth every minutes and I have greatly enjoyed sleeping in a real bed this last month or so. 

Wow, two sisters sharing a 500 square foot apartment, sleeping in bunk beds. If I wasn't living it, I wouldn't believe it either. Especially since I know how much we fought when we were younger. 

Attention whore

Queen of the Dance

A 5 cent reward for the capture of the poo bandit

We at work are trying to figure out the mystery of the poo bandit. This bandit uses the public toilets and proceeds to mess it up in nasty ways at least once a day. Nobody has actually seen the poo bandit leaving the premises after a fresh dirty but there are several key suspects. All of the suspects are old and have absolutely no control over their bodily functions. As witnessed by the poo smear on the door that was a full four feet away from the actual toilet. The poo bandit has struck the same bathroom once a day for the past 1.5 weeks but tragically, today he or she struck twice within 5 hours. Any information would be greatly appreciated and for the poo bandit to have their bowels permanently removed from their body would be even more appreciated.

To make matters even worse, I happen to live with two other poo bandits who leave their little dingle-berries on the floor for us to step on in the middle of the night. Sometimes, these same poo bandits do a funny dance while trying to deposit their dingle-berries on the floor. It goes like this: wiggle to the left, lick, lick, lick. Wiggle to the right, lick lick lick. Lather, rinse and repeat.

contentment is a stomach full of tasty food

As most of you well know, my life revolves around food. Buying food, finding recipes for food, cooking food and most importantly, eating food. I do indeed find great enjoyment of a meal well-cooked or a delicious meal digesting in my not-skinny belly. It doesn't bother me at all to spend hours creating one meal.

Over the weekend, my sister picked up a new book for me about herbs and the book also includes some recipes that feature herbs. While leafing though the book I was intrigued by a recipe for rosemary bread. Intrigued enough that I had to try it basically right that minute. Now, I have not made bread too many times and the results haven't been that good but I know that it's something you have to practice and mess up a few times before you really get the hang of it. Still not sure if I have got the hang of it but luckily, this recipe is tasty enough to make up for my lack of knowledge. Nice, crusty outside. Soft in the middle and with plenty of taste besides. I ate about half a loaf in one sitting and that's along with a steaming bowl of potato and leek soup. Homemade of course :-) This success in the kitchen spurs me into attempting to make more breads in the future. It's not something that I'll do every day but perhaps once a week.

I really delight in the idea that I am eating something that I know exactly what the ingredients are. I have no idea what many of the ingredients are in the prepared foods that fill the supermarket and I'm pretty sure that even science majors would have a tough time knowing them all. So many weird chemicals and preservatives all designed to make you believe that you're eating beef when actually, you're eating leftover chicken bits. I'd much rather take the time to make something from scratch than eat that crap.

Of course, eating fresh is a bit more expensive than eating boxed foods. Meal planning will be more difficult now that I've imposed a $50 a week budget for myself. This includes everything and I know that it will be difficult. I get my allowance every Friday. It's Tuesday and I have $4.37 to last me 2.5 more days. Do you think that I can make it and continue to limit myself in this way? Opinions would be much appreciated.

Perdone moi

Sorry about the Pella post. I know that the layout is all wonky but I don't have time to try to fix it because I am not computer savvy and I know that it will take ages to get it looking normal. 

Revisiting the Past

Yum! extremely sweet treats. A cinnamon snail and a cinnamon crispy :-) I ate them both while taking pictures of tulips.

You too can proudly display your Dutch heritage!

More Dutch stuff.

If you didn't know any better, you'd swear you were across the pond in Amsterdam. Minus the prostitutes of course.

Tulips!!!!

I'm sitting in the Smokey Row Cafe in Pella, Iowa where I spent four years of my life during college (minus the three semesters that I studied abroad) and it's a bit of a weird experience at the moment. I knew very early on that I had selected the wrong college, not because the education was bad but just based on the conservative tendencies of the

town. You could escape it somewhat by staying on campus (college campuses tend to be a bit more liberal and open-minded) but not really. Every year at Central we had some sort of drama relating to some people hating on another individual or group based on race, religion or belief system. The president of both the study body and the campus ministries came out of the college. He could no longer be the president of the religious organization of the student body. The theatre did a (historical Greek) play that depicted phallic images. The house of the director had pumpkins thrown at it. A lot of verbal discrimination went on towards the minorities (especially the hispanics). Some of them left and the campus became a less diverse and interesting place. Little things like that really bothered me in college because I try really hard not to judge people based silly little things like race, religion or belief. As long as you don't bother me, I will leave you alone and let you have your opinion.

So I come back and the town is so idyllic that it's hard to believe that things like that would ever happen. For those of you who don't know, Pella is a place that takes great pride in its Dutch heritage and this is visible all throughout the town. The public buildings and businesses have to be built with a Dutch storefront, there are Dutch bakeries with tasty treats, Dutch lace is on display in windows and there are tulips EVERYWHERE. And it's weird. I don't hate it any more. I almost wish that I were still back in college. Everything seemed so easy in college. Life sure is a funny roller-coaster.

Caution, fat person running

I've been sick of being fat ever since I realized that I was fat. It took me a bit because I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. I started gaining weight my junior year in high school and I didn't really realize it until about two years later. By then, I had gained 40 pounds and started to really hate my body. I used to be skinny, had the ability to eat whatever and not gain weight and those bad habits led to me downfall. So I've been trying (and obviously failing) to loose at least some of the weight for years. And in all those years the best I could do was when I had a tapeworm named George in my belly. George helped me loose about 15 pounds quite quickly because he wouldn't let me eat and gave me lots of diarrhea too. In some ways, I kinda miss George but it was probably good that I gave him the boot.

What really is motivating me at the moment is that my older sister is often mistaken for being the younger and me, the elder. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that she is 10 FREAKING YEARS older than I am. Talk about a reality check. I'm fat so I look to be in my mid-thirties. She's skinny so she's in her mid to late twenties. My vanity can only take so much and this is just killing me. Plus, according to Spark People AND my brother's Wii Fit, my BMI is so high that I am technically considered obese. Wow. I mean holy freaking wow. I. AM. OBESE and I don't even weight 200 pounds.

Anyway, so I am really trying for the first time in years to do something about it. Sparkpeople.com has been great in giving me some free strength exercises to do and I have officially been tracking my fitness and nutrition for three weeks now. Today, I even managed to run for the 2nd consecutive day. It's not a lot but it is something and I will continue to try to do something until I both look and feel better.

So give me all the encouragement that you can and this does include ripping the chocolate bars and Pepsi away from my face. They really aren't necessary to my exhistence and my dependence on them truly must stop.

Victory is mine!!!

Well, sort of. At least I've done my part and have actually gotten the graduate school application all done and sent off. Of course, I should have done this way back in March but I have the tendency to put of procrastination, if that makes any sense.

I'm trying for my Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language so that hopefully no government or school can tell me that I am not qualified for the job and deny me a visa. I'm hoping that having a freaking MASTERS on top of have 2.5 years of teaching experience will qualify me for many a job and by September 2010, I'll no longer have to talk about feces in my blog.

Ideally, I would get my job in Capellades back and I wouldn't have to do that annoying interview process again but that's going to be even more of a waiting game. My boss over there is starting to put together an appeal but that will probably take about a year to get resolved. I have a mental picture of myself holding my degree with the person from the Spanish embassy in Barcelona kissing my ass because he or she can no longer tell me that I am not qualified for my job. Do you sense bitterness? Oh well, I guess the morel of the story is that I'm making the best of things and trying to get ahead in life. Right now, I'm pretty sick of making $926 a month. I should know from the schools in about 3 weeks as to whether or not I've been accepted so drink a beer and toast to my future as a graduate student somewhere :-)

Somedays are poo right from the beginning

What a way to begin the day. I had to clean the public restrooms today and the first one about knocked me over from the smell. Last week, I had a lovely urine experience so I guess this was the week of the poo. On the toilet, the floor next to the toilet, the floor next to the rubbish bin, the floor next to the door. Nowhere had this person spared their poo. I scrubbed and I sprayed smelly stuff but apparently to no avail because the damn thing still smelled like poo nearly 8 hours later when I left for the day. It will probably still smell tomorrow when I clean that bathroom again. Seriously, you make a mess, you own up to it and tell somebody before YOUR POO tries to become a permanent decorative color of grout.

Now onto another rant. I really hate fussy beds with pillows, sheets, blankets, quilts, dust ruffles and comforters that have to go JUST SO on the freaking bed. And heaven forbid you mess it up because that would certainly be the end of the world. I had my days switched so I am learning how to clean new rooms yet again and this one really takes the cake. I had my annoying co-worker helping me because she is known by the entire staff as the annoying woman who is extremely picky about her laundry. Anyway, back to what the ACW did to bug me. I had stripped the bed before she had gotten there and in the process of taking the damn thing off must somehow screwed up the pins that were pinning the end of her bedspread in a decorative pattern. We get it on and notice that it's all messed up and here goes the coversation:

Me: Crap, this damn thing is messed up.

ACW: Well, I don't know how it goes because I wasn't here when you took it off.

Me: We have to get it right otherwise the resident will get pissed.

ACW: Ok. Do you remember what it looked like?

Me: The opposite of the corner that didn't come unpinned.

..... Me trying to fold it. ACW just standing there, watching me, shaking her head so that her jowls flap.

Me: I can't get it to look the same.

ACW: Well, I don't know.

...... Me trying to fold again.

ACW: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know....

Me: Let's undo that side and see if we can't match it.

Anyway, after undoing it I managed to get it to looked somewhat the same as the side that didn't come undone. Moral of the story is that the ACW didn't help me at all but stood there saying "I don't know" and flapping her jowls while shaking her head. They seem to grow them pretty special around here.

And please enjoy the picture. It's not the bed from the annoyingly fussy resident but it does give you an idea of what I have to put up with. Sorry for all of you fussy people who have beds like this but do you really need 9 pillows on your bed? You would have to curl up in a pretty tight ball in order to sleep with all of your pillows.

Because you all need to see a picture of a goat.... in a diaper

Fun with Jalepenos

Talking or rather listening to Shirley, my annoying co-worker, talk about the stir-fry that she was going to make for supper got me thinking CHINESE FOOD. It's had been ages since I had eaten any (I refuse to think of the stuff we can get around here as Chinese food) so of course, I had to make some. Now, I can't get fun things like lotus root or good tofu but I can still make a few favorites such as egg and tomato with chive, lettuce and beef with pepper. Can't find many varieties of peppers around so I decided to cook with jalapeno. It's not really that spicy and the beef tasted pretty damn good.

You know the jalapeno is good when your hands start to burn from the oil that the pepper has emitted and mine were burning quite nicely. I managed to remember to keep those digits away from my face and eyes but what I had forgotten, was that the cats really like to lick fingers, especially after eating. Poor Baily, she got in one good lick, twitched her whiskers while the oil soaked in and promptly had a hissy fit. I felt bad but couldn't help myself from doubling over from laughter. Guzzling water had no effect and there was no way that I was offering my beer. Schell's is just too good to waste on a cat.

Be still my burning nose

Had a rather lovely experience at work today involving my nose. Shocker there. Actually, come to think of it, I had several and as you've probably guessed by now, the experiences weren't all that great.

Experience the first, I walk into a room only to be greeted by the lovely scent of urine. Great, lovely. Pretty sure the resident peed all over the floor, the toilet and the laundry basket. Now, I'm not a stranger to the overwhelming burning sensation that is humane urine BUT I've never had to deal with it for 30 minutes before and try as I might, I just can't hold my breath for that long.

Experience the second, having recently cleaned a toilet that is always covered in excrement I walk by only to detect the not so subtle scent of a recently pooed up toilet. I ran away as fast as I could and pretended to have peas stuck up my nose. Sorry, dealing with that toilet one time a day enough for me.

Now, I realize that these people can't help it and some would find it cruel to be posting about them but as you've noticed, I've named no names nor genders. Besides, I'm not posting to be cruel but rather to find humor in my situation. So sue me for the penny I found today AND put in my pocket.

Nah nah ne nah nah, reality can't catch me!

Well, instead of doing what I should be doing (finishing grad school applications) I am not doing much of anything. Finished a cheesy romance novel, managed to go for a walk this morning, called my mother after finding that a certain cat.... had put it under the couch. And that's about it. I do know that I need to finish the applications otherwise I'll be stuck in some crap job for the rest of my life but just can't seem to do it. Instead, I'm going to write a list of music that I just can't live without!!!

Gustav Holst, Jupiter from the Planets

I greatly enjoy the whole symphony but when those horns do their thing in the middle of the movement, shivers erupt up my spine..... every single time.

Radiohead, Black Star from the Bends

I must thank my brother for this one. He came home from college bubbling from a new group that he discovered and how I must listen to them. Well, I can't argue that Radiohead has changed my musical life for the better and Black Star was the song that started it all.

Dave Matthews Band, Crash from Crash

Tee hee, I just love the lyrics. I feel ever so naughty when I listen ;-)

Imogen Heap, Hide and Seek from Speak for Yourself

Probably one of the best songs that I have randomly downloaded. And to think, I used to rail against any music that had a bit of electronica to it. This song is all about how she digitally manipulated her voice and it just works for me.

And that's it because I'm now bored. I really do have the attention span of a two-year old.