Let's try this again?

I did not renew my old site, so I'm starting over (without deleting the old stuff). All old pictures will not work, since I didn't save them before letting the old site crash and burn. Oops.

I have a love/hate relationship with pears

Love= the taste
Hate= the juice and the knife that I used to cut the pears with... the same knife that I (stupidly!) ate a piece of pear off of and then accidently cut my tongue. Ouch.
On the plus side, I have insanely amazing numbing liquid. It's supposed to be used for tooth/gum aches, and I've used it for those reasons many many times (see: no health insurance) but, contrary to what my mom thought, it actually does help numb your tongue as well.

Tomorrow I work with the kiddies again. I'm observing 2 8th grade classrooms. It's part fun, part boring. I don't do much besides observe the teacher teaching, but then again I'm not sure I'm ready to do much yet anyway. Although maybe if I did more I'd feel more confident about doing more? Vicious circle. But regardless, I don't think the teacher wants me to do more, she seems like she has her lessons down.

I've been wanting to try out wordpress for a blog for quite awhile now, and since I have to 'journal' (whatever that means) all of my teaching observations anyway, I made a wordpress journal for my teaching. But it's private, because I figured it's safer that way (even though I don't reveal location/names etc) and I can use those posts later as a way of making a cohesive journal. Maybe. That's the plan anyway.

I'm trying to keep myself occupied, with DLS I seem to have an extra hour on my hands before I make my normal nightly Skype call to Australia. Only 10 minutes left now, and I think I may end this here just because I still have to find socks, change the tv channel, put some fruit away (pears! & grapes), and reapply the numbing liquid to my tongue. Wish me luck in speaking with a numb tongue!

past/present

2 days ago I made this rainbow cake).
It was yummy.


Yesterday, my dad left. Supposedly for good this time.

Today, I was woken up by yelling (yet again) because he had come back. And while he had a semi-legitamit reason for coming back (he brought my van back that he had borrowed), he did his usual craziness when he went through my mom's garbage can searching for evidence of her affair (the one she didn't have). After he didn't find anything, he left again.

It's hard, not knowing when he'll come back and what he'll search next. He's already taken apart their room (twice), searched mom's desk and computer numerous times, and gone through both my and my sister's cell phone (you know, in case my texting-illiterate mom is secretly a texting-fiend and sending texts to her non-existent lover...). I think later I am going to go through my computer and delete any not-dad friendly website urls and emails I have (even though I'm the only one that ever goes on my computer). I have a feeling my computer will be next (or Heidi's) and I really don't need him using something of mine as evidence against my mom. Sometimes life sucks and I hate it.

But we'll survive, by taking everything one day at a time.

Frustrated

Right now, my van is being a pain in the butt. Big time. It was having trouble running, so we replaced the cadisomething converter, then it seemed fixed. Turns out the vaccum hoses are bad too, and so we're trying to replace them. Just when we think its running like it used to, it starts stalling out again. My poor dad wanted to go to the flea market (to sell) this morning at 3am and it gave my parents all this trouble on the way there. Then after he thought he fixed it, he decided to still go down at 11am. And it does it again! He's very angry/frustrated/grumpy. Sigh.

land of Oz

I may be going to Sydney! I always planned to go sometime, but right now the travel prices are really cheap and so I may be going in Feb of 2009. I am beyond excited about it, but a few things have to be worked out first before I decide if I am actually going to go or not. It'd be about $3,000 for 22 days, which is a lot but not really if you consider that it includes round-trip flight + hotel. Plus I think I'd have to budget in about $2k for food/fun? So $5,000ish total. That's a huge chunk of change and I'm not quite sure if I'm confortable spending it, even though I really want to go. Responsibilities, or fun? Sigh.

I also have to make sure that I'll be able to go for a month without interfearing with my school schedule. As far as I know I can go, I don't think that my practicum is something binding that I wouldn't be able to skip out on for a few weeks and just make up later. I think I'm going to call and find out sometime.

Also I need to see when exactly I can expect to get my money that I need. Everything kind of depends on this, obviously. No money= no trip.

I also need a passport. And a visa. I think there's some sort of electronic visa now, which is cheaper. Cheap= good, since I think my passport is going to cost about $200 since I'll most likely need it expedited.

I also need to lose weight! Holy moly do I need to lose if I'm going in Feb. Don't expect me to eat anything or sit down until then, ok? I'm just kidding of course, I'd never have the willpower to not eat (I LIKE eating) and lord knows I sit down a lot. That may change soon though because my family just bought a Wii + Wii Fit (it should arrive tomorrow!) so hopefully I'll be moving my arse more.
Do I get a job now and take a leave of absence in Feb, or wait til I come back to get a job? Either way I'm going to need a job so I can get some more money together.

Somehow this turned into more of a to-do list for me than a post, but it's all the thoughts that are going through my head right now so that's what you get! :)

site update

Today/tonight I plan on adding pages to the site, so that at least on some pages you won't just see that annoying 'coming soon' text.
update: My about me and links pages have been updated and now have stuff on them!

.:.:.:.:. (just blather)

My parents are driving me crazy. Just thought I'd let the world know.

I apparently need more than Twitter's 140 characters to get my point across. Although I like the idea. Maybe I just need more practice?

My nails are green. No, I do not have a fungus. I painted them green, 'mint' green to be exact, and looking at the one with a giant chip of nailpolish already gone reminds me of how I used to paint my nails when I was younger and then immediately (accidentally) end up chipping them anyway. That never stopped me though, I'd just haul out the polish again. And then I'd get in trouble for "stinking up the place" with my cheap polish fumes :)

My room now is, quite possibly, more messy than when I was little. It stays insanely messy until I can't stand it anymore, and then I do an intense cleaning job- it's like one of those Taz the tazmanian devil spins... except everything winds up clean instead of broken into a billion pieces.

I was so happy today because I got a Christmas card from my friend in Alaska's family :) Roscoe is in the military now, and I miss talking to her as much as I used to.

My personal life may be pretty awful right now (see: parents) but I'm trying to stay positive and focus on the good. Like the fudge pops I have in the freezer... yum.