I love the riddles that you speak

So I've been busy, busy, busy. Still student teaching and wrapping things all up for graduation which is in two weeks. That doesn't even seem possible and yet I'm so glad it's close. I'm anxious to graduate and often have that 'I should be doing something but I don't know what' feeling. Student teaching is great. There's rarely a morning I don't wake up and want to crawl back in bed but that has noting to do with the kids and more to do with me not being a morning person. Once I get to school, it's fun. I don't necessarily enjoy teaching them grammar but they usually end up amusing me over something in the lesson. Sometimes they even surprise me.

This week they've been doing TAKS testing stuff and so as a bit of a break I've shown them Doctor Who. Today we watched The Shakespeare Code (totally English. It has Shakespeare in it!) and they really liked it. They *did* ask me if Ten was on speed. I was like...well no but he is very bouncy then they wanted to know if he was crazy and since he's pretty maniac at that point in the series I was like 'Kind of?'. Tomorrow we're watching this year's Christmas Special because it's loosely based on Dickens A Christmas Carol if you squint. I'll have to explain to them that the Doctor regenerates and it's the same guy, different body.

This morning the little dogs got skunked. Sort of a glancing blow so they smell but not horribly. I threw them in their crate and bathed them when I got home this afternoon. They're still a bit skunky however it is better than they were pre-bath.

The tornadoes in Tuscaloosa are difficult to hear about. We have friends there and it's one of Tony's favorite places. Our friends have been lucky and are alright with the exception of one guy in the hospital who will be okay. Nature is just giving them a beating. It's scary for sure.

This weekend Lisa and Wyatt are coming up. We're going to work on the deck and just hang out. I think Lisa and I are going to see Water for Elephants. I read the book and really enjoyed it so I'm looking forward to seeing how they adapt it to a movie. That being said (the company part not the movie part) my house is a wreck. Between teaching and my own school and just life in general I haven't really had time to do anything to the house outside of keep our head above water. Once I graduate I'm going to have to do some major cleaning.

On the job front, I haven't heard anything but I'm not too discouraged yet. Everyone is saying 'At least June maybe July' which seems like forever to twiddle my thumbs. It's just not a good time to become a teacher if you'd like to get a job.

I'll just leave this here

G'night!

First a couple of book reviews cut because of spoilers. They are Keys to the Repository & Misguided Angel. Both out of the Blue Bloods series by Melissa De la Cruz

( To read makes our speaking English good )

The student teaching gig is going well. I haven't done much yet outside of observe and try to learn all of their names. 8 classes of 7-30 kids depending on the class. I think 7 is the smallest class and 28-30 the largest. Next week I'm teaching the largest class a lesson. I've got it all planned up and such. It's not a fun lesson per say--Parts of the dictionary--but the cooperating teacher thinks they need it. I'm going to have them do a treasure hunt kind of thing with it getting them to actually use the dictionary and not the online one.

The kids at the school are really good kids. The biggest problems I have with them (or their regular teacher has) is there are a few chatty ones but in general they settle down and they get to work. We watched Buffy on Thursday. They're reading HG Wells The Invisible Man and she wanted them to see how literature impacts pop culture so we watched the Invisible Girl episode in S1 of Buffy. It was funny to see them watch it and hear the comments they made. Most of them really enjoyed it. They thought the fashion was funny. They kept saying 'It's the girl from 'How I met Your Mother' or 'It's the guy from Bones!' and 'Isn't she from Scooby Doo'. Oh SMG. How badly you need a good job.

My other school work is going pretty good. There's not a TON of it which is nice. A lot of people take this class while doing their student teaching so they go pretty light on the class work.

Kiddo is doing so much better in school on the whole. It's nice. I'm not sure if he's getting a tiny bit more mature or we've just gotten through to him. Regardless I'm grateful for it.

Okay. That's all I have to say. Ya'll have a great weekend!

I had my first day of class yesterday. It was classroom management and it's a three hour class. I've had several of those and honestly I don't mind them. This one was a bit uncomfortable just because it's packed and I'm very restless when I sit. I shift and fidget and move around a lot. The kiddo gets his inability to sit still from both me and Tony. Anyway in this class I always feel like I'm going to end up bumping into the people next to me or bother them with my shifting and fidgeting. So far the class is pretty much what I expected and that's good.

I've been really working on making sure I do some kind of exercise every day. I would like to lose 20lbs before this summer. I say would like to instead of making it an actual goal because I'm horrible at making goals and completing them. I'm better at just deciding I'd like to do something and move toward it as best I can without making myself crazy. So anyway, exercise of some kind every day. I've done really well since Monday. I either do Wii stuff or (and class helps me here) I count my mile one way walk from the parking lot to the building the class is in then after class I take eleven flights of stairs down to the ground floor. I'm not insane enough or in shape enough to take the stairs up. Sometimes if I have time and I'm feeling ambitious I'll do both.

Kid is doing better in school I think. After a break we always have this period of him settling back into the routine and getting on track. He's really sweet. He's very excited about me being in his school this semester for my student teaching even though I probably won't see him at all because he's middle school and I'll be in the high school.

( The Vampire Diaries Stuff--Season 1 so no real spoilers for most people )

I'm looking forward to new Supernatural. I'd like for it to be now please. I'm hoping we'll finally be moving beyond the plot I don't like to something I do like.

Still reading a lot although right now it's The Morganville Vampires books because I'm canon reviewing for Myrnin. I'm trying to take notes as well because so much of what you learn about Myrnin in these books comes from the other characters rather than him. Since he's kind of batshit insane it's hard to trust what he says about himself. I may have figured out how to place his age a bit better. At what point in English history did people start using last names? My Medieval Survey class went over this a little bit but since it was a survey class there were giant leaps of time left out. In any case Myrnin gets referred to as Lord Myrnin of Conroy, the way he would have been at a time period before they started using last names.

My connection speed for some reason lately is sucking hard. I'm gonna have to call my wireless company and talk to them about how ridiculous it is. I'll end up doing it at night because the late night tech support will actually do something for you rather than open a ticket and refer you down to someone else. Undoubtedly along the way the open ticket gets lost, nothing gets done and it's just stupid. I hate our internet provider but unfortunately living out in BFE it's the best option we've got right now.

Succubus Heat by Richelle Mead

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I really enjoyed this one more than the others. It was interesting to see how all of the immortals dealt with the situation at hand. I did not guess the bad guy this time (usually I do in -most- books) and I liked that it very much had a on the edge of your seat sort of feel to the plot. The love story got even more bittersweet and angst filled, which I love. And we continue to get hints for the end of the series yet at the same time she shows us that the route we thought she was going to take isn't an option.



Best one of the series thus far in my opinion.



View all my reviews

I've read and reviewed all of the others plus a few more. I really love goodreads. It makes reviewing and adding your books pretty easy. The above series isn't usually my cup of tea. It's written for grownups (gasp!) and it also tends toward the paranormal romance more than I usually like BUT I really have enjoyed this series a lot. It makes me think maybe when I get through my giant pile of TBR books I ought to give paranormal romance another shot. I used to read more of it and so often it was just...PWP or the plot was so thin that it made my eyes bleed that I sort of quit.

I also signed up at goodreads to do their read X number of books in 2011. I put 100 but I've never counted how many books I read a year (not since elementary and I did the bluebonnet books thing) so I may have way overestimated myself!

Today is better than yesterday but I'm exhausted because I stayed up too late last night reading the above book and because of that exhaustion I have zero motivation. I did check out my school stuff and contacted my student teacher to find a time to give her all the paperwork I need to give her. I also made mozzerella stuffed meatballs and homemade sauce in the crock pot but really, that's where my motivation ends. It's dead and gone now. It wants to nap.

Writing is going really well too. For the first time I have a good sense of where I can go with my current stuff very long term. As in series long term. I know the general over reaching plot of what I'm doing right now. I just don't know the details yet. I love the characters and find they're incredibly easy to work with and get to talk. They banter back and forth etc etc but I'm half afraid when I go back to edit I'll find that 90% of their interactions, while amusing to me, don't really contribute that much. Eh in any case it's progress and my writing is going fairly steady if a bit slower than I would like.

Hope you guys are doing good! Have a great day!

/fails at updating.

So this month has been crazy. School decided to kick my butt. I had papers and tests and presentations. Poly was insane but in a good way. Everything is chill now for at least a little while which is nice. I like feeling like I'm on top of things even if it is just an illusion.

The kiddo also decided to go crazy this month. Nothing major. Just kid stuff but piled on top of everything else, I was ready to lock myself in a closet and refuse to speak to anyone.

That is over.

YAY.

Well Kid is still grounded but I swear that's like a state of normal for him now. He's not even a teenager yet.

Tony's football season is almost over which means life gets to return to more normal. I'm looking forward to it. He loves football season so I think he'll miss it a little.

( TV spoilers; SPN, FNL, Castle Mostly )

I signed up for Nano this year. I skipped it last year because I failed horribly in 2008 because of lack of time. I don't really have any more time this year but I think in general I manage it better. My original writing muse is happy so I'm pandering to her for the moment. I'm kristi1218 on nano if anyone attempting it wants to add me.


Every Halloween the fiction magazine at my college does a Weird & Creepy Stories contest/submissions deal. I didn't participate last year because really I've gotten so much better at time management. Anyway, this year I submitted something sort of last minute and it actually got published. I was super excited (probably the reason my muse is happy) and now that the magazine is out here's the story I wrote:

( What is and What Never Should Be )