-Ate plenty of good food (Sonic--although it was weird to eat it and not be in Oklahoma, tomato soup with grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches, Max & Erma's, lasagna, and an amazing brownie a la mode with Graeter's ice cream)
-Held my friend's now five day old baby girl
-Played Wii for the first time, which was quite fun especially since I only played for about a minute
-Took cookies to police and fire stations as part of a churchwide service project
-Saw one of my roommates from Ohio State with her cute pregnant belly (as well as her husband and their two dogs)
-Got a start on my dishes for once I get out on my own thanks to the fantastic mustafear; I now have mugs in cobalt, turquoise, peacock and plum with the promise of rounding out those place settings
-Nearly won a nerf bocce ball tournament
-Got plenty of cuddle time with my favorite four year old and miniature schnauzer
-Thankfully avoided having one of the numerous lectures on pollution the very smart seven year old gave directed at me
-Played video games with the boys
-Had an awesome time that was totally worth the better part of a gas tank with prices as high as they are right now

I watched the last half of tonight's Miss America pageant.  I saw the first two episodes of the reality show about it with Michael Urie from Ugly Betty about how they're revamping the whole thing.  (So don't worry gabri, you weren't the only one drawn in.)  The talent portion, while it has good intentions, was still stupid to me.  Half the girls sang, and for some of them (my home state included) it felt like karaoke with not attractive dresses.  The violinist was excellent and a couple of the dancers seemed okay (the jazz/ballet girl didn't do anything for me).  I kind of wish baton girl hadn't gotten booted.  Seeing her just made me think of Miss Congeniality.

But congrats to Miss Indiana for making runner up.  Sorry she couldn't be the first girl from my state to win and that she had to stay in the "Always a Bridesmaid..." group.  Even bigger bummer was that she lost to Michigan.  Can you tell I graduated from Ohio State?



As for homework, I have to turn in my midterm project Monday morning while getting stuff ready for the next week.  Ugh.  Last weekend's three-day weekend totally spoiled me.  But at least I have to get it done this weekend and not in the next few.  I'm going to see Z a week from now, having a sleep over here the weekend after that while Dad is gone on his golf trip, and then possible back down to Z's at least for a day that following weekend to see Lola.

I really wanted to write for fun today and tomorrow.  Instead I'm doing journal entries, critiques of myself (which are always so much fun), and writing a unit plan.  Boo.

Sorry I've been super busy and haven't given a real post in here for a while.  I'm still really busy, but am just making the time to write in here.

First of all, The American President is on right now.  This movie is in my Top 10 favorites.  I love Sorkin's writing, it's so great.  Although it is a little weird to see Martin Sheen not playing the President, but oh well.  Michael J. Fox is fantastic in this.  I'm pretty sure I could quote long strings if not this whole movie at one point in time.  So great.

My observation at the high school is going really well.  I earned big points for happening to pick today to show for this week since the teacher is still feeling under the weather from this past weekend and needed help with grading a lot of labs and tests.  He'd already sent a "glowing" e-mail when the guy in charge of Field Experience wrote him an e-mail making sure everything was going well, and he said that he'd write me a wonderful evaluation.  He even remember my name today.

*Takes a pause in typing to watch Michael Douglas's speech in the press room*  "My name is Andrew Shepard, and I AM the President."  *Sigh*

So I was, a few months ago anyway, thinking about joining in on NaNoWriMo.  In case you're not familiar with that abbreviation, November is National Novel Writing Month where people sign up on a website to challenge themselves to write 50,000 before December arrives.  Instead, since I'm loaded up with school work, I think I'm going to instead keep track of the number of words I write for homework.  With a 15-20 page paper due at the end of the month among other things, I'm sure I can get up there.

How great was The Office tonight?  Mindy Kaling writes the funniest episodes.  "The Dundies", "The Injury", and now "Branch Wars".  I really wish we had Tivo because you know what Dwight and Michael were saying over the walkie talkie was priceless.  Can't wait for a transcript of that to pop up.

My friend Sabrina is going to come see me this weekend, and Emily might be coming up next weekend.  Quite the Ohio State reunion.  I'm muy excited about it.

The birthday went well.  Wasn't feeling too old until my cousin pointed out that our combined ages now equal 50.  That's weird.  She bought my some of the Mythbusters DVDs off of my Amazon wish list, but they didn't arrive till yesterday. 

*Pauses to laugh at Jon Stewart talking about people doing the walk of shame this morning in wrinkled Halloween costumes*

Anyway, to tide me over she and her boyfriend got me Diet Coke and Mentos to play with as well as a Mythbusters recipe (to test) to make a Mountain Dew flashlight.  I've been stoked all week to see it in action.  According to the recipe you mix Mountain Dew, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide.  I've been trying to figure out how it would work, and should've known that it wouldn't.  Jennifer got me all excited over a busted myth.  I was seriously sad to hear it wasn't going to work.  Just for that, I will now brag about how badly I beat her and her boyfriend at Boggle (which I got her for her birthday, so I guess that's fair play).

I'm perpetually behind in my television watching.  I'm two weeks behind in Friday Night Lights, which I actually want to catch up and watch.  Private Practice was almost cheesy in its feel-goodness last night, but I got suckered right into it.  I seriously love Cooper and completely understand why Addison can't get Pete off of her mind.  House has been great with all the people trying out for the job; although I really liked the old non-doctor and wish he would've not given a rose/peony to the really intense blond.

Hmmm... I think that's all I have to say for now.  Hope you all are having a good week.

Oh!  Another reason why I haven't updated lately is because I added the Stumble Upon button to my browser.  This is a dangerous thing wher eyou put in all your interests and then all you have to do is click the Stumble! button and it will take you to random websites that fall under your interests.  Definitely not good for someone who procrastinates and wasts too much time as it is.  Anyway, this is one of the websites I've found on there to show you as a belated Happy Halloween.  It's a website where a guy has collected all the pictures (about a dozen or so) of pictures with ghosts in them that can't be explained with photo manipulation, reflections, etc.  You can find it here.  If you're like me and a wuss, don't look at them after dark.  Seriously.

And now I think I've run out of things to say.

Things I want to do, but don't have the time for/access to accomplish:
-Run an icontest (don't know of what, just something I want to do)
-Nano (which is abbreviated for NaNoWriMo, which is abbreviated for National Novel Writing Month--takes place in November)
-Draw
-Learn how to use Corel Painter
-Practice a musical instrument (piano, guitar, and/or marimba would be lovely... maybe even the oboe after five years)
-Photography


Things I have the time for, but don't want to do:
-Cleaning
-Laundry
-Homework
-Finishing my student teaching application



I would add "run a challenge at TF.N" to the first list, but that will soon be happening.  (Yes, Jessica, I'm saying that out loud so that things will get moving, aren't I sweet?)

Side note to my aunt: I think you tried to friend on Facebook yesterday while logged into someone else's profile.  I sent you (I think it's you anyway) another friend request, so all you have to do is log in and accept it and then we can be friends in real life and on the internet.

PS - the new haircut is quickly growing on me

PPS - time to go home and do some reading while watching the Buckeyes play for the first time all season.  Go Bucks!

1) Going with Kendra to Kinko's at 11:30pm to help her photocopy silverware and her face:


They guy who helped us was hilarious.  Thanks to LJ for teaching me all too well what cropping means so that I could teach Kendra.  And, selfishly, I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing someone tell me "You're so creative".




2) Trent drunk dialing work and commenting that he should ask me out.  I told him if he did, I'd be sure to wear one of the Ohio State shirts he harasses me about.



3) Lunch with Jennifer.  Only taking 3rd place because I forgot my wallet and felt guilty for making her pay.  Next week is totally on me

Since these are my last few hours with a high-speed internet connection, I figured I'd give this thing one last update before moving into my aunt and uncle's house later today.  It'll be broken up under cuts in case you don't want to read parts (or all) of it.






With that, it's time to pack up the last of my stuff, clean, and move out of here.

-I'm finished with my field experience for this semester, so yay for getting to sleep in again on Fridays.
-Had my rudest encounter yet with a guy at work.  Work all day yesterday was just frustrating.  We've been doing the same survey for three weeks now and I think everyone is ready to move on, but we have to get like ten times the normal amount of completes for this than normal.  I worked the same way I did everyday and didn't change anything so how something I did wonderful on Wednesday was completely wrong yesterday, I have no idea.  But, yeah, had my rudest person yet.  He started out seeming polite and nice, and the I realized that he was mocking the way I was speaking to him (so sorry for trying to sound upbeat and friendly).  He then asked if I spoke to everyone that way, if I asked everyone these questions, and something else I don't remember.  And then told me that I was more annoying that the company he has an account with that I was asking him questions about and hung up on me.  I almost cried.  I was so frustrated yesterday.  I'm working my butt off to beat the goal for completes per hour while the bosses are googling addresses and chatting each other up.  Yes, they definitely deserve to get paid more than I do for that.
-I watched Mr Holland's Opus last night for my special ed class last night.  I had forgotten how many people were in it; well, correction: looking back I didn't realize that so many people in it were going to be huge like Terrance Howard and Forrest Whitaker.  I read in imdb.com's trivia about the movie that Katee Sackhoff was an extra, but I didn't read that until after the movie so I didn't know to look for her.
-I've been eating chex mix like it's my job, which according to the producers of said snack it is, but you know.
-Once again frustrated with the icon situation on tf.n.  I submitted icons to go up for vote two months ago today, but they have yet to show up in a vote.  The mod is never around and takes forever to do things (I thought the previous one was slow--silly, misled me), but he somehow found the time to lock off all the Star Wars icons on the boards, and find, possibly make, and upload all kinds of Barbie, Smurf, and David Hasselhoff ones for an April Fools joke.  Not funny.
-I could feel the pressure of it getting to be the end of semester, so I did what I did last semester and turned my desktop background image into one big to do list.  this one is prettier than the last with spring colors and little flowers in the background.  It's my goal today to knock out as much of it as I can.  And that is not an April Fools joke.
-The Bucks are going to the national championship!  Let's hope they fare better than their football counterparts did against Florida.  I really don't want any more gator chomps from Dean when I go to Kentucky.
-I loved The Office marathon on Thursday.  The little bits with Toby in between were complete gems.  OfficeTally.com has links to all his little intros in case you missed them.  It just shows once again that there is not a single bad, uninteresting, unfunny character on that show.  I made a big sacrifice for myself and volunteered to work 5-10 this coming Thursday.  But I figured since my dad will be taping the new episode for my sister who will be driving home at that time, I'll just wait till the next day and watch it with her.  I can't believe it's finally going to be new!  It will be just one less episode to go with Karen on the show.  Yay.

Well that's enough from me.  My goal today (which will be crossed off as I go):
-E-mail Amber
-Write remainder of Diagnosis Asperger's review
-Write The Story of Tom Davis review
-Write Sound and Fury review
-Write Mr. Holland's Opus review
-Journal for Chapter 9
-Journal for Chapter 10

Estimated amount of pages to write today: 14
Current amount of pages written: 10
Current amount of words written: 3270

Wish me luck.