Friday, January 30, 2004

Spanish Word of the Day: Cuervo - crow

During first period I couldn't get the Jose Cuervo song out of my head. (One round of Jose Cuervo, da da d a da d a da d... two round of Jose Cuervo.) Don't you hate when you get a song stuck in your head and you only know half of it? Also got Sunrise Sunset stuck in my head after a student couldn't figure out the last two multisyllabic words in the paragraph. (Sunrise and Sunset) Had to sing it about five times before she actually got it.

Saw La Boheme last night. Awesome and funny... except for the part about opera always ending with someone dying. Whoever thought of that anyway? The music was spectacular. The scene changes were odd, and the subtitle screen was quite funny when it just read "Scene Change" The set was very complex. They were hoisting things about and for one act it snowed the whole time. The Ahmanson will probably have fake snow in its cracks for years to come.

One scene change in particular was amazing. The went from a rooftop apartment to a full on carnival street. They lit up the previously unnoticed side panels and bam! Super cool effect.

Otherwise, school has been pretty effective this week. Made some changes at the semester: rearranged desks, started a team system, refreshed rules and so on. The ELD kids are really buying into the team points. I was a bit worried at one point when one team was like 10 or so points ahead, but they finished off the week with Gold: 43, Red 41. Go Teams!

Monday, January 26, 2004

Righteo

Spanish Word O' the Day: Grr Arghh! - Okay not exactly Spanish, but that was the word for the day... all day. May be actual words for Spanish Pirates. Yeah, Pirates.

Oh? So you want a real Spanish Word O' the Day? Okay: Medio (mey dee oh) - It's means middle, or between.

So today was officially the MIDDLE OF THE SCHOOL YEAR! The last day of Fall Semester. It was a minimum day and we had all of our 8 classes with only 8 minute passing periods. Grr Argh. I was ready to fall down at the beginning of fourth and we weren't halfway through the day yet.

So the good thing is that I got rid of the students at 12:30 and moved 3 F students into the D- range. Whoo hoo. Now I'm working on two more.

Went downstairs to make copies of semester Rules Refresher and what do I get? Ooh! New rosters! And the counselors only managed to mess up all of the changes I'd requested!

One kid ended up with 2 ELD 2 classes and 1 ELD 1 Class, Two ended up with only 1 of two level two classes they had, and one is only going to have half of level two because he has to have another of my classes to graduate. Sigh. Grr Argh Finally got the changes made at 3:10 just as they printed their schedules for tomorrow. Had to stand over the counselor while she fixed the changes.

That was my day at school. Grr Argh!

oh! Totally Unbelievable Story! I was walking home from school today and I saw a Netflix envelope lying on the ground about a block away from my apartment. Looked closer. It had my name on it. Picked it up. It had a DVD in it... the one that I was supposed to get in the mail today. Can You Believe That???

DVD Title: Catch Me If You Can

I don't know whether to feel extremely lucky or extremely pissed off! Grr Argh.

See, you don't need to be a Spanish Pirate to use the new words. :)

Friday, January 23, 2004

Okay, so I've been a little lax in updating... Let's start with a:

Spanish Word of the Day: Cacahuate (ka ka hwa tay) - yeah, I know it sounds like a bad word, but it is actually the word for peanut.

"Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now, just now I found a peanut, found a peanut just now" (Girl Scout Song Flashback)

One of my students brought me some Spanish Peanut Brittle. It was pretty good.

Finals week was okay. I felt like I should have gotten a lot more done, only having two classes a day and all. It's so hard to get motivated to work after all the students are gone and everyone else has disappeared as well. Kept bringing home stacks of papers to grade... ummm... no.

Skipped choir for Varekai this week. One word -> awesome - in the traditional sense. (full of awe) Best Chrimbo prezzie I've ever bought for Mom. Now I just need to get a bit of repayment. I got two people who owe me moolah now. Bwahaha.

I was stupid and left my phone in the back of Mom's truck and had to retrieve it. So did a triple duty. Free food, free laundry, and free yarn. Mentioned to Mom I had a baby blanket to make and she dragged me upstairs and gave me yarn. Started to make a pattern I found on the internet. It's kinda web shaped. I hope it will be cool, as long as the increases are okay. It was trying to do a little poochy thing in the middle. Bad Blanket, Bad.

On the homefront, Netflixed The January Man. Cool old movie with Alan Rickman (grrr) and Kevin Kline (uber grr).

Also started Canterbury, the screenplay. Was a bit worried when Liarbyrd didn't respond to my emails right away. Thought it was bad. But she liked it! She really liked it! Must write more to impress her with my adaptation skills. We also discussed the slight mourning period when we had to say goodbye to Clare, Al and the Bunch. It's nice to bring them back from the back burner of the mind. We've missed them!

Monday, January 12, 2004

Well, I discovered two important things at school today. First, I can read my blog (and Michael's and Tricia's) from school. I can't edit it though. Buggery Firewall! Can't reach Geocities or Earthlink sites either, which is also not good for someone who wants to print out a picture of Michael sailing to use for an example.

Secondly, putting my hair back with clippy doos and wearing a knee length skirt is que guapa and que bonita. Which leads me to my newest idea...

Spanish Word O' the Day: coser (co-sair)- to sew
Spanish Word O'Friday: desfile (des- fee- lay) - a parade

Complete Randomness.

Anyway, I have a choir board meeting tonight, where I apparently am going to be made la presidente. Two Words: Oh Goody.

Pics of the choir forthcoming.

Saturday, January 10, 2004

So I spent an hour on the phone with Mel. She's feeling better after being sick with a wicked flu. We commiserated and came to the conclusion that watching Last Crusade and Raiders over and over again is a good thing to do while sick... especially if you keep falling asleep. Temple of Doom is doomed to be watched only out of sheer boredom, or the necessity of needing to hear Short Round discuss fortune cookies, while Willie screams her %&^@#% head off.

We also discussed my new idea hatched yesterday and steeped in this morning's shower - to turn Canterbury, our novel, into a screenplay and then perhaps enter it into an entry for Project Greenlight. Hey, we dream big. Anyway... I'm off to play around with my software (that would be screenwriting software people).

Good Luck to Liz on her Floridian Marathon! (Hopefully it's over by now!)

Friday, January 09, 2004

Well, here we are. Yeah, yeah, yeah, finally joining the cult-ure. Just want everyone to remember that I started blogging in `97, before it was "the thing," AND I did it all by hand. Now this should be so much easier... hopefully...