majesty among the mundane

tonight, i went to a candlelight christmas eve service. we worshiped with songs, what we've come to think of as "christmas carols", a bit of narrative about the birth of Jesus and the conditions surrounding his birth, and some sharing from the pastor. the theme was about how ordinary everything was that night - ordinary, everyday sheep; ordinary people; ordinary circumstances and setting. and yet, in the midst of the ordinary, something very extraordinary happened - God broke through and entered the this world as a baby. there was majesty in the middle of the very mundane. the pastor used this story from the washington post, pearls before breakfast, to illustrate the point.

i hope we all take time to sit at the feet of the Jesus that broke through the mundane and bleak to bring salvation to a messed-up and dark world. please don't let us miss out on Jesus, or diminish the significance of who he is, because we're too busy or otherwise preoccupied with ourselves and our own junk.

winter break

i am finally on winter break. the last week before break was super stressful - so stressful, that i developed a stye! i'm sure lack of sleep didn't help. i got into portland just past midnight yesterday, after a series of mini-delays, and i was greeted with cold and rain. oh, how i've missed this weather.



since being on break and at home is all about relaxing and doing fun things, i've started to learn how to sew. my first project - an eye pillow for my sty. wendy showed me how to make a heat therapy rice bag with a washable slip-cover. i can now independently make as many rice bags as i want. next up, craft apron for teaching use.

holiday program

sometimes i wish my classroom was like survivor...where kids are voted off the island.

we're in the middle of pulling together our winter holiday program. this afternoon, my class was part of the audience watching the kinder and 1st graders perform. they would not stay quiet - talking, playing around, and goofing off throughout the show. another teacher commented on how we should just equip each kid with a buzzer and send them a jolt when they're messing around. sigh.

after school, i took two of the girls to pinkberry in larchmont. one of the girls earned the most awards certificates in class, but couldn't go on the museum trip last weekend. as an alternative, i took her and a plus one for dessert. while we were walking to pinkberry, heidi spotted dr. karev from grey's anatomy. that ups my celeb sightings to...4?

last weekend, susan made a whole bunch of caramel/candied apples as favors for her birthday party. we have slowly been slicing up the leftovers and they are delicious. the sugar de-stresses me just enough.

acronyms

last wednesday, i did a thanksgiving project/craft with the kids. i had them make turkeys out of construction paper. on each feather, the kids wrote things they were thankful for. as i was reading through them, i saw this one: "I am thankful for my BFFE..." i asked her what BFFE stood for because i couldn't think of anything for the E. she was like, "you know, best friend for ever." it made me laugh. i explained that forever was one word, so just an F, no FE.

the aftermath

we had enough food to feed 20+ people. susan's coworker and her friends brought extra dishes - 20 twice-baked potatoes halves, creamed corn pudding, more green beans, deliciously expensive mac and cheese with balsamic reduction, and pumpkin pie. we stuck all the food on the table and ate on the floor of the living room with our paper plates and plastic picnicware. we run a no frills operation. :) i spent time "de-nuding" the turkey, as may puts it. all the yummy dark meat was carved off and saved in plastic containers. i resorted to plastic gloves to hear off the rest. i'm pretty sure i threw away some good meat still stuck on the bones. oh well, it wasn't worth the effort.



after dinner, we sat around and entertained ourselves with the wii. watching tall white guys boxing, bowling, and playing tennis was way amusing, though mario galaxy is disorienting after having eaten platefuls of thanksgiving foods.

later, we moved onto board games - apples to apples (awesome word association) and taboo (go a-team...er, team a).

now we have a refrigerator full of leftovers and we will slowly make our way through. let the weight gain commence.

more photos here

food prep

somehow, what we thought was going to be a small dinner is now a full-scale dinner party. susan and i went grocery shopping yesterday and it was crazy out, with traffic and other late shoppers. tonight, we spent hours cooking and baking things so that we have less to do tomorrow.

our menu:
molasses butter turkey
roasted sweet potatoes
corn bread souffle
stuffing
green beans with toasted almonds and lemon
green salad with feta cheese
cranberry sauce with marmalade
spinach cheese puffs (courtesy of grace and joe)
other potato dish (courtesy of susan's friend)

pumpkin cookies
homemade carrot cake
flan

cooking

one of my resolutions for my 2nd year of teaching was to leave school earlier. eh...i've just recently begun to leave before it gets dark. so hopefully, i'll be able to figure out how to leave before 4pm everyday.



another resolution has been to start cooking more. we have a staff potluck tomorrow in honor of thanksgiving so i decided to try and make risotto. i found a recipe for shrimp risotto with baby spinach and basil. it turned out pretty good! i was initially worried.

guppies

one of my students gave me guppies, three of them to be exact. as a class, we settled on some names by popular vote: mini, yoshi, and fish vader. names are also given in size order from smallest to biggest. i had to bring them home this weekend for fear of the guppies starving to death over the long weekend. i just looked up information on guppy care and it looks a lot more involved that i imagined.

fall festivities

with school in full swing, i've been too tired and busy to update. but, instead of grading some writing assessments, i decided to upload photos of the halloween festivities from past few days. there was creative pumpkin carving and a parade of costumes. the upper grade definitely attempts to find the most fun out of any event. love my co-workers.








check out more pictures here.

one month down...

so one month into the new school year, and i have not kept to my goal of leaving school/work before 4:30pm. boo. seriously...in the next two weeks, i'm going to transition. for all my type-A tendencies, i'm terrible at prioritizing and working efficiently after school. i know i spend too much time chatting with friends/co-workers and catching up. it's not my fault i have awesome people to work with.

my kids are funny... and i have lots of pictures to update...all of that will follow...sometime.

field trip friday

i took the kids to the la convention center for the WIRED nextfest education day to see the exhibits. the kids LOVED it (as did the parents)! i am super fortunate to have parents who are really on top of things, as well as friends who were willing to come out and help (thanks to my new roommate susan and gilbert too). the kids were pretty worn out by the time we got back to school. i'm thinking the walk from the metrorail station back to school after the convention center may have put them over the edge of exhaustion. but lucky us, we got a sheriff's escort all the way from the convention center back to the station closest to school. awesome - especially considering how crowded it was on the way back. i left with 28 kids and i returned with 28 (2 kids were absent...sad, because they missed out) and i call that a good trip.

i stayed at school a bit to grade some stuff, and just organize. eh...things are all over the place. i left to attend a fun-filled evening of a justin timberlake taped concert viewing. hahaha...so hilarious making non-fans to endure it. then, it was game time with scene it - boys vs. girls. us girls were super behind in the first game, but we came back and won the whole thing. second time, we just kept the lead and won on a question where we had to guess the movie based on a scene where the actors had been removed (an invisible - if you've seen them) and thank you "bill and ted's excellent adventure" - we totally won. the whole evening was basically like hanging out with kristie, shiv, and the seattle games/teenybopper gang, except with random la/la transplant folks. it was so fun! i *heart* games.

celebrity sighting!!!

i just realized that i finally saw a celebrity! friday after school, some teachers, the principal, and i went to pinkberry in larchmont. while we were sitting there eating, this couple walked in and got in line. i kept thinking, "hmm...that girl looks so familiar, like the girl from ugly betty..." but i wasn't sure. i'm watching old episodes of ugly betty right now as i cut apart my laminated materials and it is her! i just imdb-ed her and she was with her husband at pinkberry! she plays amanda on ugly betty.

now i feel like i really live in LA.

faux postage

susan and i were addressing an envelope with checks for jermaine's birthday gift. we still have the superhero stamps (worth $0.39). so of course, since postage has gone up, i bought a bunch of $0.01 stamps to bring up the postage to the required $0.41. just now, i walk into susan's room, only to here her say, "these stamps don't stick very well" immediately followed by seeing her lick the back of the stamp. i've just watched her lick the paper sticker backing. i start laughing and fall onto the floor, which causes her to come to the realization that she's just licked the paper backing to self-adhesive stamps. so awesome.

end of summer

labor day weekend always seems to mark the end of summer...at least the end of summer vacation for teachers. i spent the last few days of break helping grace and joe move to the valley (it is insanely hot up there, even at 11pm), attempting to get my check engine light to go away (it came back on again...), "studying" meaning that i spent hours cutting up laminated objects as amy actually studied for med school classes, dumpling b-day party, boogie boarding at the beach, watched "dedication" (a funny and unconventionally cute movie), went swimming, and hung out in torrance doing buddy laminating (to make it more fun) and dinner/movie. brian, alexandra and i both agree that we must be aging since we're all tired before 10pm.

i forgot... while we were at the lakeshore in carson, i ran into a teacher that i'd met during my student teaching time with 2nd graders in east LA. he's an alum of the same program alexandra and i just finished. he told me that his teaching buddy and his 4th grade class was just on the sci-fi program "who wants to be a superhero?" how crazy/cool is that? i just watched the first chapter of the episode and sure enough, i recognized the 4th grade teacher from my student teaching time.

one more day and then the kids come back! it's equal parts exciting and scary.

poor time management

i'm sitting in my classroom right now. i realized that i didn't do all the things i wanted to get done today. why? because i've been "wasting" time. i've probably spent more time talking to people and catching up than doing work for my classroom. oh well. i guess this means i'll be staying late for the next 3 days. sigh. but, it was so nice chatting with my friends/co-workers. i sure missed them this summer.

jarbling temporary substitute

with jessica and tim married and currently in europe on their honeymoon, the jarblings are few. but luckily, there are other folks to fill in the time until the yees return to the states.

earlier today, i had lunch with may & jon, and karen (my dad's cousin) & her hubby bryan. after dim sum, we stopped by costco and then went over to may & john's to hang out and play cranium. we decided on boys against girls. the girls were clearly winning when we were presented with the following datahead question:

selectaquest: which woman was the first to appear on a US postage stamp?

• a. susan b. anthony
• b. betsy ross
• c. martha washington
• d. queen isabella of spain

as we're discussing the possible answers, these are the things that come up:

may: who's susan b. anthony?
karen: she's on the dollar coin
me: uh...i think she's an author?

[the guys look aghast that we do not know who she is... in my defense, i knew she was an important historical figure, but i just couldn't remember why...]

karen: betsy ross...isn't she a singer?
the rest of us: ahahahahahaha...
me: she sewed the first us flag...
jon: you mean diana ross.

obviously, we didn't get the question right. then later, karen was reading a word worm card for the guys. it was a lexicon card and the guys had to decipher the definition of the word canard. so karen is reading the card and she begins reading the first possible definition: illicit lover. this is only hilarious because she reads it as "ill-lick-it lover" and the guys are like, "what the heck is that? and since i'm reading over her shoulder, i burst out laughing and she hands me the card to read the remaining choices.

[edit - additional details from bryan]

It was even funnier when the girls drew a card that required singing. The girls decided Karen was going to act it out. After I handed the card to Karen, I said in a girly voice, "Who the heck is that?" Then a few moments later we heard karen cry out, "Who the heck is that?"

The next best moment was the girls drew another singing card. We all knew it was a famous singer or band, but than Karen asked for a rules clarification, and asked if she can just pretend to be the animal. May was like, "Animal? You choose The Monkees or something?"

I should also point out that soon after Steph left, the guys quickly tied it all up :)

blackberry geek

i am so proud of myself right now. i figured out how to set up my blackberry to be used as a modem for my laptop when i can't pick up a wireless signal. :D

i'm sitting at the autoshop office working away on my laptop with internet connection. yay!

good luck? doubt it.

yesterday, i went to a concert at the troubadour. the detroit cobras (a band i'd never heard of until gus invited me to go) played, with two opening acts before them. before heading out to the troubadour, we ate ramen at kinchans on sawtelle. on the walk back, susan noticed something on my left shoulder and tried to brush it off, only to realize that it was bird poo. i got pooped on by a bird! gus said it meant good luck (according to jewish grandmothers). already, i was skeptical of this supposed good fortune to come.

the first act was a band called the willowz (because pluralizations with "z" give you more street cred?). i didn't like them much on-stage. i got home and listened to some stuff on their myspace and liked it better, probably because i could actually hear and understand. my peeve is when i don't find the live music more enjoyable than studio cd. i thought they were somewhere from the south or middle america, but turns out they're from anaheim. hmm...i wonder where they picked up the accents...and their "rockstar" affectations, which were kinda...not that cool.

next up was dan sartain. i couldn't understand a thing he was singing either, but i liked him and his pseudo-rockabilly guitar-stylings. but the time he was done, it was close to 11. throughout though, i think i blanked out into sleep for short moments.

and then it was the cobras. i liked them, despite not being able to understand anything. on the way out, gus said they must have had problems with the sound at the troubadour. makes sense...i don't think my hearing is that bad.

some photos:

new things!

with jessica & tim getting married this weekend, we've finally come to terms that she's moved out. and in doing so, is taking her old rotary phone (which i'll not miss - do you know how impossible it is to call any sort of customer service with a rotary phone?) and her vacuum (also will not miss as it doesn't actually vacuum much up). basically, we'll just miss her. :)

so, susan and i needed a new vacuum. last night, before watching bourne ultimatum, i stopped by target to buy a new pink-ish bissell. behold the beauty...



and today, susan caved and bought a flat panel LCD 37" TV. i *heart* it. a lot - as does she.



watching movies and TV will be that much more exciting now!

updated photos

i uploaded a whole mess of photos dating back to january. this is what i do on vacation. :)

click here.

also...i finally got to see:

• live free or die hard - excellent.
• becoming jane - the somewhat fictionalized back story to pride and prejudice, which i love in any form, be it the BBC 5hr mini-series, the 2+hr keira knightley/matthew macfadyen remake (which i watched today), the original book, bridget jones's diary (and sequel), bride & prejudice (the bollywood version), and all other homages to one of the most beloved jane austen books. who doesn't love mr. darcy?
  
• harry potter & the order of the phoenix - good, but not as good as the book. read people.
• bourne ultimatum - awesome, but now i must go and read the books.

poisoned! false alarm

i think i've been food poisoned. boo.

ok, i may have jumped the gun on that one. i feel a little better now.

holy sandwich, batman!

the title of the post makes no sense, except to say that i had a deliciously good sandwich at a schlotzsky's deli in bakersfield on saturday. that, and my love of batman. before saturday, i'd never been to a schlotzsky's, and had only heard of them.



that's us posing in front of the food court directory. the verdict - schlotzsky's makes one darn good sandwich. and what's more, i just discovered that there's 3 in oregon! only one of them is near the portland area. i also realized that i've driven by it many times and never realized it was "the schlotzsky's" that's been talked about. oooh...i should tell my brothers about it, as they would LOVE it.

a few more photos here.

on this fun day trip, it was also discovered that mj doesn't dislike all chinese food, just the stuff she's eaten up until this point (except dim sum). molly's parents treated us to dinner at their friend's restaurant. for me, it was almost like being home and eating my parents' place, except not awkward because it isn't my parents' place. it's a weird thing i have about eating at my parents' restaurant.

racism and injustice in america

i just got this e-mail from one of my advisors from UCLA.

Dear friend,

I just learned about a case of segregation-era oppression happening today in Jena, Louisiana. I signed onto ColorOfChange.org's campaign for justice in Jena, and wanted to invite you to do the same.

http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/?id=1979-226266

Last fall in Jena, the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."

A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

It's a story that reads like one from the Jim Crow era, when judges, lawyers and all-white juries used the justice system to keep blacks in "their place." But it's happening today. The families of these young men are fighting back, but the story has gotten minimal press. Together, we can make sure their story is told and that the Governor of Louisiana intervenes and provides justice for the Jena 6. It starts now. Please join me:

http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/?id=1979-226266

The noose-hanging incident and the DA's visit to the school set the stage for everything that followed. Racial tension escalated over the next couple of months, and on November 30, the main academic building of Jena High School was burned down in an unsolved fire. Later the same weekend, a black student was beaten up by white students at a party. The next day, black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were later arrested for the theft of the gun.

That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger." After lunch, he was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. He was taken to the hospital, but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening.

Six Black Jena High students, Robert Bailey (17), Theo Shaw (17), Carwin Jones (18), Bryant Purvis (17), Mychal Bell (16) and an unidentified minor, were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. The first trial ended last month, and Mychal Bell, who has been in prison since December, was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery (both felonies) by an all-white jury in a trial where his public defender called no witnesses. During his trial, Mychal's parents were ordered not to speak to the media and the court prohibited protests from taking place near the courtroom or where the judge could see them.

Mychal is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31st, and could go to jail for 22 years. Theo Shaw's trial is next. He will finally make bail this week.

The Jena Six are lucky to have parents and loved ones who are fighting tooth and nail to free them. They have been threatened but they are standing strong. We know that if the families have to go it alone, their sons will be a long time coming home. But if we act now, we can make a difference.

Join me in demanding that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco get involved to make sure that justice is served for Mychal Bell, and that DA Reed Walters drop the charges against the 5 boys who have not yet gone to trial.

http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/?id=1979-226266

Thanks.

----------------------------------------------------

i was stunned when i read this, yet not surprised - which maybe is the tragedy. please help the "jena six" by speaking up, signing up, and notifying everyone you know.

please don't think that because this isn't happening to you that it doesn't have anything to do with you. it has everything to do with you because it could happen to you if we do nothing. where there is hate, intolerance, cruelty, racism, injustice, and inequality, we have a duty to do everything we can to fight against it.

let us not be silent.

all shook up...literally

i'm pretty sure i just sat through a super brief mini-earthquake. things were shaking. stinkin' los angeles. i was momentarily freaked that it was going to get bigger, but it stopped. good grief.

wonder

His timing is always perfect.

almost over

my time at home is pretty much over. it went by amazingly fast, though that was probably due to having friends visit and going on a whirlwind tour of the pacific northwest. there's lots to blog and pictures to post, but i'll save that for later.

i am proud to say that i finished reading the last harry potter book.

lots of full circles.

visitors from another land

this past weekend, i've been lucky enough to have friends come and visit where the wonder that is oregon/the pacific northwest can finally be understood. since i haven't truly lived in portland after graduating from high school, it's been so much fun to "rediscover" the city that i was born and raised in. i *heart* home.

credit card debt...boo.

it's been over 2.5 years since i've upgraded my phone. according to t-mobile, this makes me eligible for what they call "the big discount." so yesterday, i went to the store at washington square and bought the samsung stripe for $30. but after taking it home and trying it out, i didn't like it much. enter grace and joe - my geekdom gurus. with a few prods, i was persuaded to believe that i needed a blackberry. behold my new purchase:



i've never had a "cool" phone before. it's scary how much i like having the pearl, even if i have no idea how to use it to its full potential yet. but at least now, i can make phone calls. a couple of hours ago, i couldn't even find phone numbers. yay! progress.

the other side

catching up with my friend from high school involved checking out a great tapas bar, toro bravo, and then going to a birthday party for pica at holocene. being at pica's b-day party @ holocene cemented the fact that i'm a total granny, in case i was still on the fence. it was loud and full of people. that was enough to make me crave being at home/bookstore/coffee shop with a book. even so, i was thoroughly entertained by the following:

• 2 white guys in skinny pants doing "pop 'n lock" - poorly
  
• a black guy in flannel - it just seemed wrong, but possibly only found in portland?
  
• white people dancing - my roommate once told me that white people dance a particular way - she was right. my co-worker from seattle said the same (she is white), and she told me about what she calls "the white man's underbite" which only appears in dancing.
• music (i use the term loosely) by these guys - it was difficult to take these guys as seriously as they took themselves. i couldn't understand/hear a thing they were saying; it was just too much, but i did think they were unintentionally hilarious.
  
• hip-hop guys - they were pretty fun, if you ignore some of the lyrics.

after all that, my head hurt...a lot. i went home and crashed. i so can't hang with the hipster art crowd - it's too exhausting to be all sorts of "different" - too much effort is involved.

media update

movies to watch:

• once - indie movie/musical with a great soundtrack
• transformers - self-explanatory.
• ratatouille - clever and fun

summer tv:

• psych
• burn notice

music:

• once soundtrack
• james morrison - quickly replacing my previous music crush - jason mraz
• pink
• mandy moore - wild hope
• jon mclaughlin
  

dragging my feet...

i'm supposed to be packing right now. i do not like packing. instead, i'm playing around with simpsonizeme when i should be packing. sigh.

w00t part 1

as of yesterday, i'm no longer a graduate student! i now hold a masters in education! now, 10 more teaching days and i'm done with my first year as a 4th grade teacher. mass pictures to follow.

another day, another jarbling

jessica is chatting with her friend and husband online and asking about their trip in china:

jessica: "did you guys ride around on those ricochets?"
her friend's husband: "AHAHAHAHAHA!"
jessica: "what's so funny?"
HFH: "you are! it's not called a ricochet!"
jessica: "then what is it called?"
HFH: "i'm not telling you. wait till i tell jane about this!"

so then jessica asks me what those things are called, where you ride around in a cart and a person is pulling you... i tell her it's called a "rickshaw" and she asks me how it's spelled. then she says, "so then what's a ricochet?" "it's when things bounce off stuff."

rescuer of the geeks: part II and other stories

so a few weeks back, i rescued a stranded jeff. his motorcycle battery died somewhere in santa monica. last week, his car was stolen and then subsequently recovered by LAPD. it was being held for investigation/fingerprinting until yesterday. i was called upon for my access to AAA (from the time that my transmission died after a volleyball game in north seattle and my whole team stayed with me to wait for the tow truck) to help jeff tow the remains of his car back to his apartment. after the impound released his car, this is what we saw:


most of it was gone! they took just about everything they could from the car, including his crockpot that he'd just gotten back from mj! the first thing the tow guy said when he saw us was, "DA-AMN!" it was hilarious. fortunately, he was pretty knowledgeable about cars and his assessment says the car was probably stripped down in a warehouse where they had the time to take car to unplug and strip the car in the nicest way possible. i'm not sure if jeff found that very comforting.






they took the back bumper, which means they also took his "real men love Jesus" license plate holder. they were kind enough to leave the "Jesus" fish though.

-------------------------------------------------

so, i'm 98% done with my thesis. i turned it all in, and i'm just waiting on the second reader to provide tell me if i passed. my primary thesis reader e-mailed me this week with the following comments:


i'm so relieved! it feels wonderful to be *this* close to being done with grad school. it's about 2.5 weeks from graduation and only 22 more school days until i'm done with year 1! summer vacation is SOOOOOOOO close.

----------------------------------------------------

jessica e-mailed me earlier to tell me that there was a problem with her bridesmaid dresses and how she had to look for new ones and here's the excerpt:

"The reason why this email is entitled "boooo" is cuz I finally heard back from the bridesmaid dress shop in downtown and they lady told me that due to a manufacturing problem they are not able to get the dresses I ordered in the sizes I need by my wedding date. Argh, I guess it's back to the sketching board for me."

that part in bold italics is the latest jarbling.

jarbling alert!

instead of packing, jessica wanted to quiz me about some stuff. in the midst of her line of questioning, she said i was making things seem a bigger deal than it was...

jessica: "you're adding flames to the fire."

now, i knew we had another jarbling, but i could not think of the real idiom. i had to wait for susan to get home. we had to tell jessica that it was "adding fuel to the fire."

seriously...where will i get jarblings once she's married?

freedom!

after spending all of today working on my thesis...i am 96% done. the other 4% will be completed after my thesis readers make their final edits/comments and it goes to the binding stage. so after spending almost 10+ hours sitting in my apartment, i had to go and do something fun. i finally got to see hot fuzz. it's been so long since i've seen or read anything british that i almost forgot why i love british humor. from the makers of shaun of the dead comes this fantastically wacky spoof on the whole cop movie/action genre. loved it. love those crazy brits.

must listen to:

• amy winehouse
• the soundtrack to wicked
• jon mclaughlin
• ray lamontagne

must see:

• wicked the musical
• hot fuzz

must read:

• i'll let you know...now that my thesis is basically done, i can read for fun again!

must do:

• open up my sewing machine!
• and go to magic mountain...or some other amusement park equivalent
• graduate in 4 weeks
• finish up my first year of teaching in 6 weeks - so looking forward to this
• go home for a little bit
  

photo update!

it has been awhile since i've posted any photos and updated about what i've been up to... my thesis has taken up a lot of time...otherwise, i'm just too darn tired to update. but, here it is...


april was all about birthdays. minjue celebrated by fulfilling a childhood dream of going to chuck e. cheese. here she is trying her hand at skeeball. i'd like to mention that right before she started playing, she declared that she was super goodat it. she threw balls that flew every which way. you be the judge. :)

in all fairness, it was discovered that she'd only played one time before she made her declaration.


so there were tons of games to play for tickets. here is kay after winning a bunch of tickets... she how happy she is?


and here she is again with a bigger pile of winning tickets...she literally hit the jackpot on a game! i think she ended up trading for lipgloss for her and bekah along with some other stuff, like stickers or something...lucky kids.



so the big mouse came over to take a photo with birthday minjue. i don't think i've ever seen a more awkward birthday photo that this one with minjue and chuck e. cheese. i think she was super creeped out. but she did get one memorable birthday out of it!

i finally got to see wicked a few weeks back. it is my absolute favorite musical. i loved the book, but i have equal love for the musical. i went with tim, jessica, and tim's friend and his date. i want to go and see it again. i've been listening to the soundtrack non-stop ever since.



somewhere along the line, i also became a rescuer of stranded geeks. here is a geek with a motorcycle in need of a jump-start. sadly, even with a jump, the bike only made it as far as the end of the block. it had to be left behind, but the battery got a ride home to be charged.


i had brunch with minjue and her visiting friend dorothy. we made homemade ice cream sandwiches with mj's birthday present from williams-sonoma. the sandwiches were delicious and super fun to make with the brownie like cookie part and mint chocolate chip in the middle!


after brunch, we all carpooled to drop dorothy off at the airport and then make it to san gabriel to see sam in the king and i. on the way to LAX, minjue bought some cherries from a lady on venice. in giving the woman a $20 bill, she was only supposed to get $15 in change. she accidentally got the full $20 in small bills and the bag of cherries. she accidentally "stole" the fruit. we had to turn around and have stacy run back with the $5 so the lady wouldn't think she got ripped off.


and finally, i went to my first sporting event in LA - a dodgers game. one of the teachers at school organized a staff outing and it was super fun. we sat in the section with unlimited food - dodger dogs, nachos, soda, popcorn, peanuts...it was awesome. i could only stomach 2 dodger dogs and 2 orders of nachos, with some popcorn and soda, but one of the other girls ate 4 dodger dogs...plus everything else. during the game, we made enough of a ruckus that andre ethier waved his glove at us. afterwards, it was fireworks night, so they let us all onto the field. so very cool.

and that's the end of the update.

security only comes with chains

jessica bought a wii and she said she was going to leave it in san diego so they don't have to move it around so much while they are in transition before their august wedding...

jessica: "until then, i'm keeping it under lock and chain."

of course, tim told her it was "under lock and key" and she doesn't think it works. a chain is more secure, and if it's lock and key, the key is with it, so anyone could open the lock!

i love the rationale.

kids' writing: part 2

instead of writing my thesis, i decided to scan some work from my kids. i am so seriously avoiding my thesis...procrastination at its best. every thursday, my students have a comprehension "test" about the story of the week. it's a mix of short answer and multiple choice. it's almost a guarantee that there will be at least one amusing response per week. a few weeks ago, we read a story about a guy who explored the arctic regions and students had to respond to the following question: "Would you like to live in the Arctic regions? Explain why or why not."

here are some of their responses.



according to the first kid, guns are necessary for survival in cold weather against wild arctic animals.

sometimes, kids will say things in class dicussions that have very little to do with what we're actually talking about. sometimes, they do that with their writing too. the second kid talks about skateboarding, magic tricks, and going down a big slide. i'm not sure what to say... i mean, i showed them pictures of glaciers, greenland, arctic regions. i'm still trying to figure out where magic tricks came from. he really is this random in real life.




both of these kids understand that the arctic is freezing cold. most of the kids say they would rather not live in the arctic because of the climate. it's always funny to see kids' reasoning. the potential of eating raw meat "grouses" one kid out. the other one has already figured out that while he certainly wouldn't choose to go to the arctic, he wouldn't mind wishing something else there.



still others would rather go to the arctic and live in freezing cold weather than come to school. the idea of sledding and building igloos is a much bigger draw than coming to class. truth be told, i'd rather go sledding and build igloos too.

there are a handful of kids have a lot of "personality" and sometimes, it shows up when they write. this particular kid aspires to be an actress. she already has the "drama queen" thing down - "i'm to young to die!"


the rest of these are just randomly amusing...




the second to last one - this kid thinks girls = disaster.

the spectrum of emotions

i'm not sure if i knew that i could feel the whole spectrum of emotions in a matter of one weekend. i got to watch blades of glory on friday night with my roommates, which was pretty darn hilarious. it was pretty much a fun, light, and care-free evening with fish tacos homemade by gilbert snuck into the theater for me.

saturday morning was dim-sum and enjoyable time with friends. later that afternoon, i went to a memorial service for grace, an amazing woman whose life was marked by fruitfulness and God's presence, as evident by the 1000 or so people in attendance. the first thought (i'm sure it was the same thought of many others) was to wonder if my life would be remembered or marked in the same way. how tragic that i didn't think it would, at least not right now. the next thought was how inspired i felt to live that kind of life, marked by the presence of God and bearing such fruit. my thoughts then turned to the church, how it should be so undeniably filled with God's presence and fruitfulness. i went from sad, to inspired, and back to sad in realizing how far i, and the church, am from that vision.

afterwards, i couldn't stop thinking about it all. i didn't know her well, but for the times i was around her, it was so easy to see that she indeed had this radiance, that came from God, just as the pastor described. because she reflected Jesus so beautifully, people were drawn to her, but you know, really to Jesus. that's the prayer i have for my life and church, to reflect Jesus so beautifully that people are drawn to Him.

so what does all that look like? i thought i knew, but on days like today, i'm not so sure. when the message at church makes me cry and God takes the opportunity to pinpoint my own selfishness as well as the ugly side of my own anger - regardless of my feeling like it's righteous. we are so very wretched, yet called beloved by God. how can we look at each other in any other way than how God sees all of us? the difficulty is to truly care and love others as God does - to deal with and treat people as he does, even when he is angry with us and upset at us because of disobedience.

there seems to be much to think about.

kids' writing

the 4th graders are taking their end of unit writing assessment which has them write an article for the school newspaper describing a medical condition and the ways that homeopathic and modern medicines can be used to treat the illness. here are some funny things kids wrote (unedited for spelling):

• "Kids over 5 and under 18 are onerable" - i think he meant vulnerable.
• "German chamomile is originally from Germany, as you can tell by the name. This remedy is commonly used by peole with chicken pox in Germany."
• "...but some signess are if you are coughing, and also if seenzing or if your weak and also if you have bugers..." - we're working on his spelling, as well as his long run-on sentences...
• "Also you can use yago to exesice breathing." - i don't know yago, but i do know yoga...
• "You could alose use chines herds like digehantang or put a bag over your moth." - writing a letter backwards can change "herbs" to "herds" and then change the whole message of the sentence
• "When you take all of the stuff like take a good, dring tylenol, and drink Dimtop you feel better and you could do fun stuff, go out to partty's." - sometimes it's like deciphering a new language. what kind of parties do kids think we're going to while they're sick anyway?
• writing about a sore throat - "It hurts cause everytime you swallow something it's like somebody very little on your tonsole hitting it every time you swallow something." - a very apt description of a sore throat

students' writing ranges from tragicomedy (unintentionally funny, and sad that they're writing this way at 4th grade) to hilariously brilliant. reading their thoughts on paper never ceases to surprise us with what they misunderstood and what they very clearly understood and later framed into their own articulate wording.

lost in translation

i guess tim and jessica were talking how there's not a need to go over something again and again, so she had said, "you don't have to beat a dead cow." tim told her the phrase is "beat a dead horse" and jessica went on to explain that her phrase came from another phrase, "stubborn as a cow," to which tim explained that it's "stubborn as a mule." jessica normally blames her 4th grade teacher, but this time she's pinning it on her parents, from whom she heard a mandarin idiom that literally translates "to be stubborn like a cow" and how she remembers it that way because her dad is the most stubborn person she knows and was born in the year of the cow.

tim classified this as a 3-parter - the mixing of the two idioms + the correct usage of the mandarin one.

we've suggested that they use these mixed idioms as their wedding table identifiers, rather than the standard issue table numbers.

insightful ninja turtles

so growing up, i loved watching the teenage mutant ninja turtles. my favorites were always raphael and michaelangelo. i'll skip the reasons why for another time.

i think it might be safe to say that i was one of the few people who teared up during an intense fight/argument scene between leonardo and raphael in the new ninja turtles movie; i actually had to take my sleeve to fight a couple of tears away. what struck me was how intense raphael's feelings were - it was equal parts love for his brother and anger towards him for leaving them. it seems like such a dichotomy of feelings - love and hurt/anger, yet he's only hurt/angry because of the fact that he loves and values his brother so much. there's a life lesson in there... loving something a whole lot and then being incredibly upset when you're disappointed by that which you care about/love and the frequent inability to deal with the disappointment. in a rash moment, it can make you want to lash out, hit some things with a large, blunt object, though these choices inevitably lead to remorse and contrition, not to mention further damage, sometimes irreparable.

anyway, a seemingly mindless kids' movie made me think - worth the price of a movie ticket.

some kind of earthy matter

jessica declares, "i'm not going to be an optometrist anymore! i'm going to look for a new job. it's time to turn over a new stone."

tim and i are like, "umm, you know it's a new leaf, right?"

jessica: "i swear it's a conspiracy! because, who hides stuff under a leaf? it's so flimsy! you know, because they hide treasure under a stone."

you can't make this up! life is great.

kumar!

this is how i know i'm not as stressed as the first half of the year: i'm looking up a pilot for a tv show that's being filmed right now next to school in k-town on imdb called "the call" and it stars kal penn of harold and kumar fame. dude...i'm so walking over either at lunch or after school to see if i can spot a real celeb. nifty.

rko - i'm going to be trying to find your twin. :)

it's due to slang

i love coming home to something funny and comedic...

according to jessica, you are well-hearsed when you're knowledgeable about something or just really well-prepared.
me: you can say "well-rehearsed"
jessica: yea, it comes from "well-rehearsed", but because it's "slang" you don't need the "re" so it's just "well-hearsed."
the rest of us: uh...i think it's well-versed, to be well-versed in something
jessica: oh well whatever.

wrestling move or anti-apartheid activist?

so the other day, i was at home and susan asked me to name the wrestling move where you put your arm under that of your opponent and bring it around the back of their head. i was like, "half-nelson?" and she started laughing. of course, i asked her why it was funny. she told me that earlier, jessica had said to tim that she was going to use that wrestling move on him, but she called it a "mandela." that made me laugh...a lot. i was told that jessica had tim look it up on wikipedia to because "mandela" could've been slang for the wrestling move. ahaha...good times.

a teacher's worst nightmare

ok, there are actually a number of nightmares that teachers have, but one of them is oversleeping and being late to school. so, yesterday morning, i was pretty sick. our office manager gave me some daytime theraflu. midday, i was ok, but by the end, i felt hot...and was perspiring a lot...not good. i had class in the evening and got home around 8:30pm. i sat at home, rested, drank some meds, and fell asleep. sadly, i had failed to set my main alarm and my cell phone alarm was not enough to wake me up. so...i overslept and didn't wake up until school called! BOO! i freaked out when i looked at the clock and it said 8! anyway, they were worried because they knew i was pretty sick yesterday and were ready to call a sub. i got to school a little over an hour after the day started, but good thing jenny had them working on math problems from the text.

at lunch, i was talking to the other teachers and almost all of them have a similar story, which made me feel better and not as big of a dork. still...arg. may this never happen again.

happy little trees

today, my class had to take a state writing test. since we've been drilling them with writing for the last 3 weeks, we decided that the rest of the day (after the test) should be fun and relaxing, like a celebration of their accomplishment. we passed out drumstick ice cream cones after lunch and did some art. i taught the kids how to paint a landscape, right after jenny taught me how during our lunch. here's my attempt:

i kind of felt like bob ross. i wanted to tell the kids to paint some happy little trees. anyway, while they were painting, i heard one of the girls say, "calm down your horses." i laughed quietly, then called her over to let her know that the phrase is "hold your horses" but that my roommate also says "calm your horses." jessica felt redeemed, i think, when i told her the story.

in addition to feeling very bob ross, i felt very disheveled, a total mess. during recess, i went to the workroom to get paint, only to have it spill on my shirt because of a loose cap. later, i dropped chocolate ice cream on my shirt. i had planned to meet grace after school to go to santa monica to get some sand for her class project. i did not feel fit to be out in public, but didn't get a chance to change. as we were crossing the street towards the pier, a random older white dude in a SUV on a cell phone yells out, "gabrielle says hi!" right at me. so, i smiled and waved at him - "hi" right back at you, gabrielle. my stained shirt might have made me look like a target...

friends doing cool stuff

i'm a little behind the times. i think it was in the summer that quest church in seattle held their annual faith and race class. these guys i know (aacf co-core, friends, neighbors, surrogate big bro) made this video:


the vid stars:

mel - "who am i?"

simon - "i'm a foreigner"

jon - "i can't speak english"

dennis - "i know kung fu" - you are still so missed...

gar - "i'm a ganster" - to be fair...i thought you were a gansta too when i first met you :)

fongster - "i'm a bad driver" - i'm not familiar with his driving...but his track record with flag football injuries to others isn't so hot...

chong - "i love math" - and jar jar binks :)

g-sak - "i am American" - i hope japan treats your ex-pat self well!

the video is a great reminder of stereotypes we deal in each and everyday and the struggle to break out of these molds. plus, it makes me miss the days of "guerilla" filming. chong and gar shoot some footage here!

jarblings

i love having roommates, especially when we have fun incidents like the following:

jessica is very upset with her brother because he plans on getting a new dog, when they already have a family dog that she ends up taking care of... and so jessica is telling tim how mad she is and what she'll do to her brother if he goes and gets a new dog. next thing i know, tim runs out, and asks me the phrase that you use when you want to say that anything goes in a fight...

me: uh...no holds barred?
tim: ahahaha...
jessica: whatever!

of course, i am curious about what she said instead. jessica had said that she'll shoot her brother - no bars hold. her justification is that no bars will hold her back from shooting her brother.

ahahahaha...

visitors!

wendy and josh are in LA! we've been eating and hanging out - it's so fun! it's like having a bit of home here. and i love that i'm getting to share this part/phase of my life with people who know me in a different context.

tonight, they got to come and visit my church and i was so excited for them to come. i really love my church. obviously, we are aren't perfect, but it has been the environment that has helped foster so much growth for me this last year. this adds to the love i have. and tonight, at least for me, was just another reminder of why i feel such a big pull towards it. i was totally moved by the sharing of the amazing people that i go to church with and get to call friends. i love that wendy and josh felt blessed by being part of the service tonight and that they were given time to share their heart and their ministry, though they were pretty much strangers to exodus. that, in and of itself, moved me. and that we prayed for them - even more so. i'm not sure i can even express in words what i felt tonight. i just know that my heart was bursting with such joy and encouragement and sense of love and being embraced.

*EDIT*

ok, i totally thought that jessica had copied the valentine's day card she gave tim. i just found out that in the original card, the answer was just written. she came up with the pictures herself! this makes it infinitely more funny. but, it might only be funny if you know jessica and tim.

and in case you've tried, but haven't been able to figure it out, you can highlight for the answer:
[2 hearts + beat + ass + juan = two hearts beat as one]

misinterpretations

i had to teach my kids metaphors this week as part of the language arts lessons. some of them had funny interpretations. here are a few:

sentence: that car from the 1940s is a dinosaur!
interpretation 1: the car is mean and ugly.
interpretation 2: the car is really big.

sentence: the hat was a pancake after she sat on it.
interpretation: the hat was hot and flat.

sentence: john's brain is a computer!
interpretation: john is a robot.

happy valentine's day

holidays are insane when you're a teacher. the kids find it really difficult to contain their excitement. all day long, it was about when they would get a chance to pass out their cards to one another. i didn't think that so many of them would actually do the whole card thing. even a bunch of the boys brought cards. too cute. i received an insane amount of gifts and chocolate. two of the girls (really, their parents) sent beautiful tulips and flower bouquets. my friend becca jokingly suggested that we ban all holidays (except the ones where we get a day off) because of the "hyper" factor. i had a target shopping bag full of stuff.

by the numbers:
6 - number of mini-mugs i know have
4 - number of heart-shaped boxes of chocolate given to me
1 - box of lindt truffles
2 - bouquets of fresh flowers
3 - fake flower gifts
too many to count - valentine's day cards (you know, the kind you used to give out as kids...) and random candy

one particularly funny card from a kid (the class barber...if you remember that story) - he signed it with his name, and then "your main man" - i cracked up! i showed the office staff and they were dying... it was too cute/funny. poor kid... in a few years he might remember this and be mortified.

so i got home today after class and jessica and tim are doing their gift exchange. jessica's gift involves this elaborate question and answer game about their relationship, plus a bonus "puzzle." she saw the puzzle/riddle in a card at the store and thought that it was funny and the kind of humor that tim would appreciate. instead of buying the card, she just re-drew it:

it's insanely funny when you figure out the answer to the riddle...it could also be potentially in poor taste (you'll see what i mean when you figure it out...) i could not stop laughing...i thought it was worthy of a scan and a post. jessica would like everyone to know that she DID NOT make this up - she saw it in a commercially available greeting card made for the occasion. anyway, tim figured it out almost immediately and jessica says, "you figured it out so fast! you're so smart! how come you're so smart?" ahahaha...

and an unrelated funny story about math: i was teaching about lines and angles yesterday. i asked the kids if they'd heard of those two things. here's the conversation:

boy student: "i've heard of them, but you can't see them."
me: "what do you mean you can't see them?" and then i realize what he means...
me: "oh! you're thinking about angels! that's different from angles..."

i spelled out both words on the board, so the different in spelling and pronunciation would be clear...the kids and i had a good laugh about that one.

...and so it begins...again...

tomorrow, i go back to school. i've been on break these last 8 weeks. these last 8 weeks have been so fantastic. i got to do a lot of things, like:

• be part of shiv & gar's wedding
  
• go home and spend a few weeks with fam & friends (christmas + new year's)
• puppy-sit russell
  
• hang out with friends in seattle, portland, and LA
• have quality time with God
• start a 40-day fast from all TV (i know...it's torturous)
  
• sleep/rest/eat/read/have a life
• catch up with friends
  
• go to a taping of leno
  
• go to hawaii
• learn fun new games
• go shopping (brick & mortar and online)
  
• get my sunny disposition back
• share at church - audio clip - exo-fast day 20 - i'm the third person
  
• be a person again

and i had to do things like:

• write the first portions of my thesis
• go to class once a week for UCLA (and 1 saturday a month)
• pay my credit card bills...BOO

did i mention that i am one lucky girl with great friends? i'm lucky enough to have friends who willingly came to my school to help me set up my classroom (of course, there was the lure of a free lunch) and just get random stuff done. also, awesome friends timmy and judy found a sewing machine at an amazing price and procured it for me just in case i wanted it, which i did. i am now the proud owner of a singer sewing machine from my favorite store - yep, you guessed it - target.

i'm more excited than stressed about going to school tomorrow. at dinner tonight, i didn't feel any anxiety. normally, sunday dinner is when the anxiety kicks in. i'm going to take this as a good sign. i really, really want these next 4.5 months to be different than the first 4. i want to be different - i want to be more and be better - for both myself and for the kids. wish me luck... we'll see how i am after school...

and i know i haven't posted about hawaii...i really am going to, but it's been busy these last two weeks... so until then, you can read about it from kepi, aka jeff. you'll have to scroll through to find links to pictures from the first 3 days and his commentary.

break #5

i'm still sitting on the floor of my living room working on the thesis. outside, it is still warm and beautiful. i hear the buzzing lawn mowers and feel the breeze coming through the balcony's screen door. both of these things remind me of growing up - summers in portland. it's a happy feeling. i'm basking in it.

*basking*
*basking*
*basking*

ok, i am done. back to work.

cabin fever

it has been oddly warm the last few days for february. yesterday it was something around 80 and today, in the mid 70s. i look out my window and it's beautifully sunny. i would much rather be at the beach than cooped up in my apartment writing my thesis, which does happen to be coming along kind of nicely. still, i'm getting antsy sitting in front of this computer screen trying to write intelligent and revolutionary things.

i want to go to the beach.

on a different note, i've been meaning to post pictures and write about hawaii, but like i said, i've been trying to be all academic and smart. i'll get to it as soon as i finish this portion of my paper.

break over - back to work... boo...

[edit]
this is the conversation i just had with my brother:

mikey: steve nash injured
mikey: this is bs
me: so no RAW?
me: wait...who's steve nash?
mikey: steve nash of the phoenix suns
me: oooh
me: oh...white guy?
mikey: the 2 time reigning mvp
me: with long hair
mikey: yeah
me: i was thinking steve austin.
me: hahahaha
mikey: P
mikey: hahahaha dumb

my excuse - my brain is fried from writing!

aloha

i got back from hawaii last night. will post pictures and stuff about the trip later, after i move all my web stuff to a new server.

on TV!

i came home yesterday and watched the very beginning on the tonight show because sam said he saw us in the audience. in very, very, very slow-motion, i caught a quick glimpse of the 3 of us. it was a "blink and you'll miss it" moment. i think the only reason we were identifiable was because of sam's bright green and yellow sonics track jacket. if i knew had to get a screen capture, i'd post it.

in heavy rotation:

• kt tunstall - eye to the telescope
  
• mat kearney - nothing left to lose
• snow patrol - eyes open
• the shins - chutes too narrow

buried in:

• the unschooled mind - howard gardner
• mind in society - l.s. vygotsky
• educational psychology - l.s. vygotsky
  
• vygotsky and education - l.c. moll
• forever in blue: the fourth summer of the sisterhood - ann brashares
• the divine romance - gene edwards

enjoyed watching:

• rocky balboa
  
• dreamgirls
• little miss sunshine
• the holiday
  

would like to be watching:

• heroes
• 24
• prison break
• gilmore girls
• veronica mars
• grey's anatomy
• scrubs
• ugly betty
• the oc
  
• american idol

i'm so procrastinating... back to the thesis...

the tonight show!

i spent half the day in burbank at nbc studios, watching the taping of the tonight show with jay leno. dan and sam went at 6am this morning to wait in line for tickets that get passed out at 8am. they were the only ones there until 7:15, when the next person showed up. i didn't have to show up until almost 2pm. thanks guys! since they waited literally all day, i brought them panda express for lunch (at their request), which has never looked so delicious to me. seriously.

anyway, they let us into the studio around 3:30pm. while we waited, we watched a series of clips of past musical performances, one of which was russell crowe and his band. they weren't great and he kept making jazz hands/spirit fingers. jay leno came out a little earlier and joked with us a bit and sam had the inside track that a certain key phrase meant that we could ask to take pictures with him. i heard jay say it, but froze - like a deer in the headlights. sam, on the other hand, raised his hand and got to take a picture with leno! very cool. jay also asked sam what he does and joked with him a little
about what he plans on doing after finishing at talbot. sam said pastor, and jay said, "or fast food." ahahaha...

the guests were jennifer garner (who was seriously adorable), ty pennington (seriously ADHD...), and musical guest bow wow (who was surprisingly good). i'm going to TIVO the show tonight to see if i can catch any of us on TV. we were sitting just behind the first two rows in the center of the studio, so there's a good chance. so exciting!

tricked!

so yesterday (the day after my snow-induced nostalgia) i left my apt to meet my thesis support person/advisor in k-town. when i left the westside around 1:30, it was pretty clear, sunny, etc. when i was driving back home two hours later, i noticed that the ground was wet and that it was still lightly sprinkling. how odd, i thought. i get home and park my car and start unloading my books, etc from the backseat and as i turn to walk into the building, i see something out of the corner of my eye. so i turned back and took a second look, and the stuff on the ground looked suspiciously like snow! then i looked over at the hood of my neighbor's car and i saw more snow!

i was shocked! i thought, it snowed while i was gone! i was like, did it just snow here so i wouldn't feel like i was missing out on home snow? i was so excited, but sadly, had no one to share this excitement with in the immediate vicinity. but lucky me, 5 minutes later, jessica came home and i made her run downstairs so she could see the snow. she kept saying it was ice and i kept insisting it was snow. just then, our neighbor came down to the garage and i asked him if it was snow. turns out, there was a hail storm! and it was the slushy leftovers of hail. jessica laughed at me. i had really convinced myself that it was snow. but in my defense, it looks like snow - even if it did defy southern california weather logic.

-------------------


in other news, pammy told me that the post office was selling superhero stamps. since buying stamps is on my list of "to dos" i walked to the post office and mailed out stuff and bought cool superhero stamps, even though the postal lady tried to convince me to buy the valentine's-themed stamps.