Back in August, Stephen Colbert got his fans to crash Wikipedia by logging in to edit an entry.
The video from the show used to be on YouTube, but it’s been removed. Does anyone know of anywhere I could possibly find it?
D’oh! All this blogging and I forgot it was Groundhog Day!
No Shadow for Phil; Early Spring for Us
I never attended the Groundhog Day festivities when I lived in PA, but always sort of kind of wished I had. Then I remembered that it’s cold in February.
You can visit the “official site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club” here.
The beginning of a semester is always an adventure, trying to get organized and make sure things get off to a decent start. I’m not making any drastic changes to either of my classes, but there are always little things that have to be changed or adjusted.
The cheerleading thing has been a bit of a challenge. Things have been chaotic to begin with, and I’ve had one (out of seven) quit. Ah well…it’s less than a month to go, and (assuming that I’m doing this again next year) it’s just the beginning. I’m sure things will improve.
The weekend was uneventful, but semi-productive. We bought a desperately-needed vacuum cleaner, and I did a bit of cleaning. There’s still more to do, of course.
Yesterday, I had lunch with Jen (something we’ve been trying to do for a couple of weeks now) and spent way longer than I meant to in the mall. I went in for a pair of gloves, as I somehow lost one. I came out with gloves, a cute little denim jacket that was $12, and a shirt that was on a sale rack.
In the mail, I got a pair of jeans that I successfully purchased on eBay. You know how you have that one favorite comfy pair of jeans that you don’t know you’re going to love when you buy them? And then when you go back looking for another pair, they’re nowhere to be found? Yeah, they were those jeans. And I found a pair for $16.50 plus shipping, brand new with tags. Yay for me. 🙂
Okay, gotta go…I have a class to teach!
It’s been six years.
I keep linking back to this post on this date, because I said so much, and I don’t need to say it again. I still miss her. We all still miss her.
I notice that, in the above post, I mention that it was almost six months since I had met Rand. That was two years ago.
I wish she could have met Rand. I wish he’d had the chance to know her.
The evil sickness has almost left me. I woke up feeling a wee bit congested, and still coughing up some yuck first thing in the morning, but after some decongestant and heading back to bed for a little while, I feel almost completely normal again. Yay!
Classes started yesterday, and they went pretty well. I had to take two guys aside and tell them they weren’t supposed to be in my class (regular Writing 100), but rather they were supposed to be in a developmental Writing 100 section. I emailed both of them last week to inform them of this fact and let them know that they should see their advisors about making the change. They either didn’t read the email or ignored it. 😉
One of my classes is very small…I only had 12 students registered, and only 9 were there yesterday. Oh, it would be so lovely if it stayed that small. The other class has 15 students registered.
Classes at the other school start next week. I’m teaching their version of developmental writing again, which I actually missed last semester. The nice thing about that class is that it’s much smaller and I can devote a lot more personal attention to each student. Also, most of them work really, really hard, because they really, really want to pass. I’ll also have an evening class, and those are usually pleasant. I haven’t been able to log in to the system to see how many students are registered for those. The English 101 classes start out larger than I like (it tops out at 23, but they usually stuff a couple of extra ones in), but usually dwindle down to somewhere around 15 throughout the course of the semester. I still have to update my syllabi for those classes, but that shouldn’t take me long. I’ll be incorporating some of the elements from my syllabus at the other college.
I also got a new battery put in my car. Yay for me.
I probably should get to some of this today. The only other thing I have to do is go to a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. (just a regular checkup) Lucky me!
Oh, and of course I’ll be taking a project 365 photo and posting it. 🙂
I’m not done uploading my photos from GAFilk yet (this getting sick thing kind of interrupted me), but here’s one of me and Jam just before the banquet.
I didn’t get any photos of the band at the banquet this year, but Jodi and the rest of Play it With Moxie were fantastic, of course! 🙂
Thanks, Thomas, for helping me finally get blog this! to work for me. I tried and tried, but Thomas just has the magic touch apparently. 😉
This is me with fellow TC editor Bellman, aka Jam, aka Amanda. Yay! 🙂
It’s a camera phone photo, so not of the best quality…but it’s online immediately! Thanks again, Thomas, for helping me with this.
Okay, here are five things you might not know about me. Tagged by LadyTurpentine.
This is hard. 😛
1. I knew how to read when I started kindergarten. I sensed that this was not typical, and so pretended that I didn’t know how to read. I apparently successfully convinced my teacher, because the only part of this story I remembered was that Mrs. M didn’t believe I could read. My mom reminded me of the rest.
Me: Mrs. M didn’t believe that I knew how to read.
My mom: That’s because you pretended you couldn’t read.
2. I played a parrot in my Girl Scout play when I was in middle school. I later used the costume (multi-colored streamers glued to…something…and a beak) in a Halloween costume contest and won an honorable mention. They called me a “paper chicken.”
3. The first record I remember buying was the 45 of “Eye in the Sky” by the Alan Parsons Project.
4. When I was in high school, my aunt (who lived in California at the time) married a man who had a son who was my age. When I was a sophomore, they moved back to Pennsylvania and lived with my grandparents for a while. My aunt’s stepson was my first real kiss. (ew) At the end of that year, he went back to California to live with his mom, and I have never seen or heard from him again.
5. My freshman year of college, I took an acting class. I had to perform a scene from “A View from the Bridge” in which I had the line, “Teach me, Rodolfo. I don’t know anything. Teach me.” After my partner and I had finished the scene, my somewhat pervy professor asked me to explain what I meant by “teach me”. I was 18, shy, and utterly mortified. I’m pretty sure my response was, “um…
You’re it. Leave a comment if you answer!
I’m in a mood today.
What’s not helping is that I’m knee-deep in paper grading, and the stupidest things are setting me off. Like the inability to follow simple instructions.
I ask all my students to write a short reflective self-assessment to hand in with their portfolios. Now tell me, dear reader, how one misunderstands the SELF part of self-assessment.
Yeah, I don’t know either.
Apparently, my class wasn’t entertaining enough for this one. I should have had them “play some writing games or something.”
Feh.
Ahhh…sweet, sweet electricity.
As predicted, I’m in a much better place now. the lights came on around 6 p.m. last night. I literally jumped up and down like a lunatic.
Last Friday was a pretty rough day for me. Rand (along with Lady Turpentine and jennimi) went to Canada on Thursday evening to attend a conference. They should have come home on Friday afternoon. Alas, mother nature had other ideas.
Thursday night, I had started watching season 1 of Veronica Mars (thanks, Netflix!). I absolutely loved it. When it was clear there wasn’t going to be school on Friday, I decided to stay up and watch some more. The first disc has four episodes on it. I stopped after the third, thinking “I can watch the last one tomorrow…” I went to bed around midnight. I still had electricity.
I think the power must have gone out and come back on during the night, because I heard the cordless phone beep. When I woke up at around 8, there was no power. I ate some cereal…the milk was still cold.
My parents called me around 8:30…they’d gone out for breakfast and heard about the snow in Buffalo. I confirmed that yes indeed, there was a whole bunch of snow out there. My phone beeped at me, letting me know that my battery was low. Crap! I started to panic a little…I had no way to charge my phone, and the only phones in the house were cordless and therefore useless.
I decided to get dressed and venture outside with the camera.
Here’s what greeted me, just outside the door:
Some people were attempting to dig out their cars. Why? Who knows…no one was going anywhere. Even if you had managed to get out of the parking lot, our road was blocked by trees and downed lines.
I walked down main street a bit, verifying that nothing was open. I came home and read for a little while, then tried to occupy myself by going through old piles of crap I had lying around and organizing them. I found batteries for the radio and tried to get some news. I tried to figure out how I would be able to be in contact with anyone with no cell phone. I alternated between pacing, staring out the window, and reading for the next several hours.
I decided to turn my cell phone back on, and Rand had called from Canada. I called back, worried that the battery was going to die in the middle of my conversation. It was at this time that I completely lost it. I had been holding onto the foolish hope that Rand would somehow be able to make it back that afternoon–that the roads would be cleared. Not so. I learned that all major routes were closed. The next 24 hours stretched out in front of me, seemingly endless. I was cut off from the rest of the world, but for my radio. My phone wasn’t going to last. I had very little food.
No, I wasn’t going to die…but I was going to be awfully miserable.
I let myself freak out for a bit, then pulled it together and decided to venture out again. One of my neighbors was charging her cell phone in her car. Her boyfriend(?) was standing outside, and I commented how I wished I had a car charger.
“What kind of phone do you have? I have one in my car, and you can use it if it fits.”
He got into his car, pulled out the charger, and lo! It fit! I wanted to hug him.
I sat in the car, plugged in the charger, and called my parents.
Then it was back down to Main Street with me. I brought my phone, charger, and computer…just in case. Maybe Starbucks or Caffe Aroma would be open.
I was amazed by what a difference there was from the last time I’d been outside.
(8:30 am)
(1 pm)
I came across someone walking toward me with a takeout coffee cup. Something was open!
“Where did you get that?”
She told me that DiCamillo Bakery was open, so I headed there.
I ordered some pizza and headed over to the cafe area. The cafe area is pretty tiny, but they did have many available electrical outlets. I immediately plugged in my phone. There was no place to sit, so I sort of hovered. When my pizza was ready, a couple who had a table invited me to sit with them. They were very nice, and I was happy for a little while…I had hot food, warmth, human contact, and a place to charge my phone!
When I got home, I managed to find an old phone that didn’t require electricity. Yay! I read for a little while longer (finished one book and nearly finished another), talked to Rand again, then felt sorry for myself a little while longer. I decided to call up a friend of ours who lives nearby…he didn’t have electricity either, but he does have a fireplace! I visited for a bit, warming myself by the fire. They gave me some hot apple cider, and I played Sudoku with one of his daughters. They were all in kind of a frenzy, trying to find an open hotel with electricity. They found a possibility and decided to head out, so I left. The Wegmans on Sheridan was open, so I headed there to get myself some provisions.
Since we had been advised not to drink any water without boiling it first, I bought some bottled water (I got one of the last 12-packs of spring water in the store). I also got a few other things that didn’t require refrigeration or cooking.
It was probably close to 8 when I got home, and it was dark. I lit all the candles I could find, and put batteries in the cordless window candles I’d bought in the Christmas aisle at Wegmans. I snacked and tried to read a bit by candlelight. I realized that I could watch a DVD in my computer, so I finally watched that copy of Once More with Feeling (the Buffy musical) that Stephanie made for me long ago. (I loved it, by the way…) I talked to my mom, talked to Stephanie for a bit, and talked to Rand again. Then I piled on some blankets and went to bed. I did not sleep well. 🙁
I woke up at around 8, and decided to head to Wegmans in hopes of getting a hot drink. It seems that everyone else in the world had the same idea…I decided that a hot drink was not worth waiting in line for an hour. I picked up a couple of things and headed back home. I bundled up and tried to read, but I mostly paced and stared out the window a lot. Rand called shortly after 11 to let me know that he was sitting in border traffic. I decided to try Caffe Aroma. Much to my joy, Caffe Aroma was open! I had a hot drink and an internet connection. I stayed for about an hour, and not long after I left, Rand got home. While I was still a little cranky, my disposition was much better.
We spent the next couple of days visiting with friends and family who had electricity. The nights were manageable, with lots of blankets. It was the getting out of bed, the showering and getting ready in the cold. Brrr.
But now my apartment is light and warm again! I celebrated by immediately doing two loads of laundry…that was starting to become a problem!
What a crazy, crazy week this has been, eh?
