Mama I'm coming home

I still have to call my parents to confirm, but I'm heading to Sonora for a couple of days before I have students instead of Grand Theft Auto 4 to suck the energy out of me. Yippee! I apologize for not giving anyone advance warning about any of this, but when you really have no schedule to adhere to then advance planning just seems really silly. If you're free between Wednesday and Friday, you should swing by the Andersons for some food and a beverage.

I'm really looking forward to yet another lovely tour up the 99. This time I will be stopping in Bakersfield, which is all sorts of gorgeous. My God. I will be hanging a bit with Scarlett and J, and if anyone can pump some life into the Bakes it would be S&J.

This whole trip up north is really about Father's Day and my tradition of having no money, so as a gift I caddy for my dad for the Wednesday evening businessmen's league out at Phoenix Lake Golf Course. I'm probably getting a little too old for it, but it's 9 holes, dad loves it and he gets to remind all of his fellow businessmen just how much their own daughters do not love them, and I imbibe on a few Coronas and talk about what I've been doing "after softball". Everybody wins.

Working Boys and Girls

Life momentum has definitely been accumulating. Phil was officially hired at the school I was hired at. We’ve essentially skipped ahead a year in the future and transplanted our lives in SF down here in SoCal. He will be working as a housing coordinator and RA, which is cool because we get a swanky apartment in Long Beach for FREE. Free is about all we can swing for housing right now. It’s a studio apartment, so it’s not exactly ideal, but it is our own place temporarily. Both my position and the RA position are summer gigs, so we may have to move back in with the rents at some point, but vee shell si.

Regardless, there is movement. And the breeze feels oh-so-good.

Employed

*Officially!

I got the part of English Language teacher. I speak the English very good.


*part-time, starting July 7th, 2009.

Virtual Godzilla

Virtual Godzilla

Right, so I don’t have a job. I am super unemployed, so I’ve been trying to fill my time with educator-y things that will make me super-instructor. I’m taking an online course about using technology in the classroom effectively. As a teacher and a researcher, I’m curious about that stuff for language instruction.

This morning I got an invite to join the PBworks summer camp for educators. SWEET! PBworks was formerly PBwiki. Does that help? It's basically a souped-up wiki for teachers (and other people).

In their own words:

PBworks for Classrooms

PBworks hosts more classroom workspaces than anyone else in the world, and lets you create a simple, secure workspace in about 60 seconds. Workspaces drive engagement and collaboration. A workspace is a live, evolving document – but gives you user tracking and access controls to monitor your workspace at all times.

You can make your workspace public or private or anywhere in between. No matter what, PBworks keeps your students’ information safe.

It’s cool, it’s free, and I dig the vibe of the company, so of course I joined. And then promptly managed to DELETE THE FOLDER WITH THE ENTIRE COURSE CONTENT.

Which led to this twitter posts from the camp director, Kristine:






Then this:






Then this:






Then thank god, finally this:







The magician engineers were able to recover the folder. Praise Bob. Support at PBworks and Kristine were way cooler than they should have been. They didn’t threaten bodily harm once.

Holy shit, I am so embarrassed (very, very present tense). I really almost deleted camp.

Happy Birthday Mom and other happy news

It's not just a clever title. It's my mom's birthday today.

In other super good news, I have an interview with a language school on Thursday. Where they will ask me "questions about teaching" and "to explain a verb tense."

It's a wonder this profession isn't respected.

Regardless, wish me luck, cross your fingers, pray for broken legs and gingersnaps and puppy dog tails or something like that.

Boom Drink: How to Make Exploding Cocktails

http://www.geekologie.com/2009/06/boom_drink_how_to_make_explodi.php

Anyone up for drinks?

You just freeze a mint flavored Mento in an ice cube and then make a drink for a friend (read: enemy). Any artificially sweetened soda should work, but preferably something darker so the frozen Mento isn't so obvious. Then, a few minutes later when the Mento is exposed to the soda, BOOOSH! Alternatively, garnish your friend's glass with a live hand grenade.