american idol

so my roommate susan got tickets to a taping of the results show a few weeks ago. after school, i rushed home, only to drive back to cbs studios next to the grove. we stood on the sidewalk and didn't make it in. as a consolation, they gave her priority tickets to a future taping. that taping was today. i have parent conferences all next week (30 of them), grades are due, and i have portfolios of student work to put together, in addition to the normal amount of school stuff i have to do. to say that i'm swamped and stressed is kind of an understatement.

anyway, this was probably the worst week to get these tickets, but i left school earlier than in a long time and made my way over to the grove. the studio looked the same as the last time i went (2 years ago for a dress rehearsal of performance night with alexandra), except now only the VIPs get to sit. the rest of us stand in the pit for the whole 2.5 hours. so, ryan is still a small guy, but taller than i thought - we estimate 5'8" maybe. randy is thinner and shorter than i imagined. paula is tiny. she was hard to even find in the crowd. simon needs to wear an undershirt and button a few more buttons. some pseudo-celebs were in the audience:

• kimberly locke (season 2) performed a new song. she looked great.
  
• former contestants onstantine (season 4) and gina (season 6) sat next to each other.
  
• natasha bedingfield was front and center behind the judges table.
• rapper (lil') romeo - ok, i didn't recognize him, but since he had a bodyguard with him, we assumed he was somewhat famous. i heard somebody whisper, "romeo." then later, on my way home, i was thinking he kind of looked like master p. i just googled him, turns out he's master p's son! susan couldn't get over the bling around his neck. she claimed it was a jewel-encrusted keropi. somehow, i don't think that adds to his street cred.
• the boy that plays justin (betty's little brother) on ugly betty was there. he's a cutie.
• AI producer/director Nigel was running around.

and they don't count as pseudo-celebs yet, but booted contestants david (former male stripper according to my other roommate susan) and danny (a waifish looking boy) signed autographs for the teenybopper set.

i think that's it. i have to say, this show makes it super awkward for the bottom contestants. they are made to sit apart for the duration, though they get called over to the couch of safety during commercial breaks. when i watch on tv, it's like whatever. but seeing the person 30 feet away from you sweating it out is kind of sad. chekezie was booted from the show. poor guy. he seems like a pretty nice person. we really did feel super bad for him. oh well. i wish good things for him.

i also left the taping with a tiny crush on the australian guy - the accent helps, as does his singing. plus, he's a cutie too.

movies

i just saw a commercial for run fatboy run with simon pegg (of hot fuzz and shaun of the dead. it's so going on my list of must see movies. that, and penelope.

separately, i still heart the blazers. here's something random i found amusing. blazers meet braveheart.

dumpster diving

so, i'm sitting in my classroom entering my students book orders. earlier, i was looking for a $10 coupon for scholastic and i couldn't find it in the folder i keep all the order forms and payments. i thought back to this morning and recall throwing some stuff out. boo. the custodial staff had already come by to empty out the trash cans. so what do i do? i find her and ask to dig through the big garbage bag. she gave me gloves when she saw i was about to just start rifling through the bag. after 5 minutes, i gave up. then, i remembered that heidi (next door) probably got the same coupon pack so it should have the same promo code. she let's me borrow her code and as soon as i sit down at my computer, there is my february coupon staring at me. DARN. i dug through trash for no good reason.

i blame my head trauma from sunday. i didn't think of the heidi back-up until after i'd been digging through the trash. but really, i completely overlooked the coupon sitting right next to the computer in the first place. and naturally, kids were walking through the hallway wondering why the teacher is on the floor looking through the garbage. i am so a product of my frugal upbringing. bah.

weekend

last week, susan made spring rolls from scratch. she didn't use up all the filling last time, so on saturday, she made the rest. there were a bunch of peels leftover, so we decided to try and make crab puffs. ok, i call them crab puffs, but she calls them crab rangoon. crab rangoon does sound a lot fancier.

all fried up. they were REALLY good.

susan's chinese new year spring rolls. also VERY GOOD.

so after we went to the farmer's market that morning, we got hungry mid-afternoon. the cafe laurent chocolate almond croissant held us over until we fried up everything. here's susan sitting with all our fried goodies plus sushi rice and "sushi land crab salad" (it's a portland thing).

and here's me icing the left side of my face. i played flag football today and was part of a little collision. subert told me to ice it because they could see the swelling. suck. if it bruises, i'll have a good story for the kids tomorrow. i'm using the blue ice packets that people put in their lunch box. i'd rather use my rice bag, but i think it has to stay in the freezer for a bit longer.

and, i've been checking cnn.com repeatedly, watching the gap between clinton and obama get smaller and smaller. he's only down by 27 delegates. yay for voting.

little brothers' birthday fun

this was an IM from andy:

andy: no xmas present, no bday present
andy: <----- sad face

i did get him a present, though it was late.

in honor of both brothers (mike and andy) having birthdays earlier this month, i'll share a few funny moments about each of them.

mike turned 24 a few weeks ago, and divided by 6, that makes 4. so here are 4 short stories.

• when he was little, like under the age of 6, he used to be really scared of fire. whenever there was a birthday cake with candles, he'd duck under the table and hide until after the candles were blown out. i'm pretty sure we have a bunch of pictures with all of us around the cake and mike hiding underneath.
  

• i came home from UW on a break and i guess i'd gained some dorm food weight. i walked in the door and the first thing mike said was, "you ate my sister!" jerk. though i admit that was a pretty good one.
  

• a few years ago, i was home on some break and was making food. i told mike (or it could've been andy...i can't remember, but we'll just say it was mike) to wash the rice. he looked and me blankly and said, "what do you mean wash the rice?" i was like, "you know...wash it and get it ready for the rice cooker." he said, "you have to wash rice?!" all those years in college and he just cooked the rice straight from the bag + water...no washing.

• most recently, my family came to LA for my graduation. they rented some kind of car, a dodge i think. anyway, i was driving us somewhere and on the radio dash, it read "trunk ajar." mike says, "what does that mean, ajar?" i told him that it meant that the trunk was slightly open. he says, "in what language?" we (except my mom, because she has no idea what's going on) look at each other and say, "uh...english" and start cracking up.

andy turned 22 last week. 22-2=20. 20 divided by 5 is also 4. 4 stories about this punk.

• when he was little, he was total mama's boy and a brat. i had gotten a souvenir mini mug and saucer from BC from my trip with wendy, chris, and their parents. andy was fascinated by it, so i put it on the top of my bookshelf, out of his reach. next thing you know, we hear a huge crash. he tried to climb up to get it and ended up toppling my shelf and breaking a bunch of porcelain paperweights (like my cute ballet shoes). he wasn't hurt, but i was so mad. i made sure my mom punished him - she had him stand against the wall and hold his arms straight up above his head as he cried the whole time. every time he tried to put his arms down, i made my mom come back in to enforce the punishment. he was 6.
  

• he wrestled in high school and was always cranky, trying to make weight. my mom always tried to make him eat, which made him more cranky, like seriously PMS cranky. anyway, one season, he got ringworm. i incessantly made fun of him. he hated that, but i had my fun.

• during his senior year, i drove him out to forest grove (or was it cornelius?) to pick up his letterman jacket and as we were looking for parking and a space opened up, andy says, "what frugal timing!" i looked at him and was like, "you know that's not how you use frugal right?" now every time we find parking, i say, "what frugal timing!" he tries to explain that it was on purpose. sure it was.
  

• last year he turned 21. he woke up with his face all scratched up. i guess he met with the pavement sometime that evening. he told our mom that it happened in basketball or flag football or something. she believed him.

happy birthday kids.

wacky weather

it's been raining on and off this week like seattle/portland. i have to admit that i kind of like it. however, what i do not like is how so cal drivers react to the rain - they can't drive. it took me 45 minutes to get to work on friday morning during light rain. that's just ridiculous. it almost doubled my commute time. LA is not built to handle rain. Case in point - my school's main lobby area flooded from the rainwater seeping in through the double doors and caused some damage to the flooring.

i went to target earlier and during the drive there, i listened to the sound of rain drops hitting the car. the entrance was super crowded with people waiting for someone in their group to bring the car up because they didn't want to walk in the rain. it made me laugh. LA people are funny, albeit unintentionally in this case. and now, sitting in my apt, i hear the rain hitting the windows. it's great.

latest obsession

my time at home as launched a new obsession. forget pop culture news. these days, i'm reading a sport blog, mostly having to do with the blazers. but, i've recently discovered gilbert arenas's blog, because he mentions the blazers, and i have to say, it's pretty entertaining.

i used my internet search skills to find a new jersey radio station broadcasting the blazers vs. nets game because i couldn't find a live stream anywhere (and because i don't have NBA TV) and then at half-time, kept refreshing my blackberry until i could make it home through traffic to get the radio broadcast again. i told my brother this, and he laughed at me.

anyway, blazers won. and i just watched the sonics lose out to the lakers in OT. boo.

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this morning, the kids were walking up the stairs and one of the kids, edward, tells me that his mom told him he's not black. i stopped walking and looked at him. he said, "my mom said we're asian." edward is korean-american. i swallowed my laugh and said, "edward, why did you ask your mom if you were black?" his response, "because you said we're not white." great...good one teacher. i clarified with edward that not being considered "white" just meant that we were minorities/under-represented people group (whichever you prefer as i know some from my ucla cohort do not like the term "minority"). i told him that not everything is black and white. i also told him to tell his mom that i did not tell him that he's black. edward and i had a pretty good laugh about it. now he knows he's asian-american.