What's the weirdest baby name you've ever heard (or considered)?
just before i was born my grandpa asked my dad what they were going to name me. my dad said, "well, we want a name that will honor both the baby's american and german background, so if it's a boy we're thinking of naming it otto-bob."
i wish that had stuck as a nickname or something. shit. otto-bob.
as for actual names, i declare myself out of the running. i'm a teacher on the south side of chicago. the first time i had a kid named deja i was like "heh, that's funny," by the time i had 5 dejas i realized i have no concept of what weird actually is.
proof that nothing on the internet ever, ever dies:
i wrote this TWELVE years ago!
also, i was either a remarkably articulate 12-year-old or i am a remarkably dim-witted 24-year-old because that post seriously sounds like it could have been written by 24-year-old me.* even my suggestions haven't changed. i never, ever considered being a teacher before my 2nd year of college, but i obviously hadn't thought about it enough. reading that makes my fate seem pretty clear.
*articulate-12-year-old or no, how have i not learned anything new about writing since i was 12? i think the only thing i've learned since is that "a lot" is two words and i finally learned the difference between "to" and "too." also, i have stopped capitalizing stuff, so i think that might have negated any positive change.
"Hope you find this advice from this avid R.L.Stine reader helpful."
St. Patrick's Day: Show us if you wore green or got a pinch.
unrelated and random:
-sonic youth is performing daydream nation in its entirety here in july and even though outdoor concerts kind of make me want to kill everyone around me with lasers from my eyes and make me wish i'd stayed home, even if staying home meant watching nothing but an everybody loves raymond marathon of punishment, i still kind of want to go. i feel i owe it to the 15-year-old in me.*
-i keep wanting to name things, but i have nothing to name. i really want to name a pet charles wallace and i've decided, at least for now, that if i have a kid i am totally naming it louise, after my mom. i used to think her name was really lame but now i am kind of obsessed with it.
-school hurts
-karaoke dreams tonight, and i am ever so psyched. i think tonight is the night i attempt blondie.
-my 30-book goal is suffering a little, but i have all summer of no work to catch up, so i'm not too worried. so far i have finished life of pi (pretty good) and the blind assassin (awesome) and am currently rereading middlesex and harry potter and the order of the phoenix (i got an uncontrollable urge to read some harry potter the other day and got really excited about number 7 coming out this summer). i know, i know, shut up. i'll read a lot this summer, i promise. every time i try to read in the evenings i just fall asleep.
*"What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are – underneath the year that makes you eleven. . . Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one." i just kind of wanted to slip some sandra cisneros in there for good measure.
What's the first image that comes up when you Google your name?
if i google my first and last name i get, predictably, me:
if i google just my first name, though, the first image that shows up is this (not kidding):
it might not be a picture of me but i'm pretty sure those are my boobs.
last year's new year's resolution was to return library books and movie rentals on time. i did improve on that front, but i also currently owe the chicago public library $43.90 so i don't think i can officially declare success.
this year i couldn't think of anything on new year's, but as of january 11th i now declare that this year i will read at least 30 books, not counting the picture books i read to my kids every day, obvs. last year i read some abysmally small number of books. like, 12 or something. i'm a little embarrassed. andy, inspired by pete, is going for a book a week, but i've decided that in my virtual brain atrophy state 52 is a bit of a lofty goal. i told my students that my goal was to read a "chapter book" every 2 weeks, but 26 books sounds just a little sissy, so i'm bumping it up just to 30. you are all responsible for making sure i do this. by which i mean i will post when i finish a book so i can pretend people are paying attention.
we are stating with (already 132 pages in):
soon to be followed with:
yes, i do have 35 season passes on my tivo. we'll see how much this gets in the way. i have pretty much stopped watching anything that hasn't already been recorded by tivo. and yet i still spend most at-home waking-hours watching t.v. probably because, you know, i have THIRTY-FIVE season passes. and there are something like 15 scrubs episodes recorded every day on top of daily gilmore girls and jeopardy and colbert report and daily show and family guy. I LIKE T.V.
anyway, yeah, 30 books, guys. let's do it.
Show us your favorite movie scene.
Submitted by Caroline.
"you've gotta have a little faith in people"
Show us who you'd like to kiss under the mistletoe.
i often get a really, really serious case of the "grass is greener" syndrome. it's so bad right now that i am jealous of all of the people that are complaining about finals right now. "I wish i had finals! finals would be so much better than work right now!"
this is just straight-up not true. work is going to suck donkey balls this week--kids are insane before christmas and my kids are very, very close to not earning their christmas party--but i still don't have to write any papers or take any tests and if i phone it in this week sure, my week will suck, but it will end. if it was finals week and i decided to just not really do my work, it just wouldn't get done, and it wouldn't end until it got done. sure the grading isn't going to do itself, but that's not the hard part.
basically, i should not be jealous of the people who have finals this week. i miss college but holy hell, let's not get delusional.
i spent the weekend at my nana's funeral. i write that here mostly so that i will in the future have a dated journal entry that helps me pinpoint when that happened. it just seemed like i should. it was actually a really nice weekend during which i got to see many family members whom i actually like a lot but whom i do not get to see very often. also, my dad's girlfriend managed to alienate somewhere around 20 or 30 of my relatives and family friends. it was a little sad, especially for my dad who all-of-a-sudden was faced with a family who hated his girlfriend/fiance (my mom swears she heard him refer to her as such, i think my mom is a little crazy), but also vindicating, because i think she is rude, controlling, and generally unlikable. it's nice to know it's not just me. my nana didn't like her either, so the myriad of things that happened this weekend that caused everyone to dislike/make fun of her, including the priest referring to her by a nickname that she hates, seemed like a nice tribute to my late nana, who never would have wished ill towards her but still probably would have laughed at the conversations had around her this weekend.
i just want to sleep for a week and wake up at christmas break.
it's the holiday season! a time for love and giving and charity!
yes, i have plugged this before, and yes, this does basically just
amount to me asking for money, but it's not for ME, so you'll humor me.
one (or several) very generous, wonderful, brilliant person (people) funded one of my donor's choose grants today. a giant box of books is headed for my classroom and hopefully soon my students will learn how to use a period and understand plurals! one down, one to go!
if maybe you have a grudge against me you can give to one of the other classrooms in my school (with a special plug for my 4th-grade colleague).
or maybe you have to buy presents for a lot of people you don't actually care that much about. it is my understanding that this happens in offices etc. i wouldn't really know. anyway, remember when oprah gave everyone in her audience $1,000 and they got all screamy-happy, and then she told them that they had to give the money away? and then they were probably less happy? but they knew that they should still be excited because charity is good and because hey, then they can act like oprah for a day and give away $1,000, which most people never have a chance to do. be like oprah. give the gift of (mildly unwarented) self-righteousness (hey, look at you giving to charity--we won't tell anyone it wasn't really your money!)
happy holidays!
