I'm too pensive to bullet my ideas today. I just got back from the State Fair Grounds, where I saw the Flaming Lips for the first time. I loved: the streamers, Wayne Coyne's hair, and finding an empty seat so I could watch the spectacle from up high. I disliked: the overstimulation, how much he swore (there were a lot of little kids there), and the dancing martians.

I spent three hours organizing my room today. I'm going to have to constantly remind myself to be graceful about my classroom "situation," since I want to try to be that kind of person who takes on challenges without fuss and proves the cynics wrong. However...my room is very small. It's like generous-walk-in-closet small. I don't have a desk, because there's no room. I have two tables, but they had to be manipulated many ways before I found a placement that would leave enough room for me to go from the door to the whiteboard without going over or under them. All the boxes of materials had to be removed just so it wasn't like one of those puzzles that requires you to move one piece at a time. And tomorrow, I'm going to need to throw out bags and bags of material that I have no room for (most of it seems like junk anyway, but I swear I'll need it the minute it's gone).

My family comes to town tomorrow. I love when they visit because they're on their best behavior and feel the need to eat at really nice restaurants :) We're going to the fair tomorrow night, then spending the night at my grandparents' apartment in Edina. I'm really excited about trying more crazy fair food; today I saw pickle on a stick, wrapped in cream cheese and salami (eww). There's also cheese on a stick, key lime pie dipped in chocolate on a stick, and obviously, pizza on a stick. I tried the breakfast sausage (with cheese, egg, bacon, potato, and peppers in a sausage link!) this morning. If was fabulous. Anyway, Saturday morning I'm going to attempt to make the Disney World triple-sauce, caramel french toast that I last made at my apartment warming party two years ago. It's amazing, and I'm excited!

I have a strange pain in my calf that is starting to worry me. Since my appendectomy in March, I've become much more hypochondriatic...but what if it is a blood clot? Since the idea makes me feel nauseous, and "clot" is the word I hate most, I hope my mom can give me a normal explanation tomorrow. Like running strain, or something else less fatal and disgusting.

I'm going to a black-tie Emmy party this weekend that I'm very excited about as well. It's being thrown in a kind of ironic way (I think), since there will be running commentary (I'm sure) disparaging every presenter, winner, and the host. And I won't mind at all this time, because I know the source of all this hostility and know it's in fun ;) I'm going to wear my red satin gown, if I can find a zipper. I bought it for $15 at the designer thrift store, knowing someday I'd need it.

I need advice about dealing with colleagues that are still stuck in a high-school mindset in terms of personal relationships. With people like that, should I avoid them, tolerate them, confront them, or act hyper-nice and kill them with sweetness? Or is that just playing into their game and I really shouldn't think about them at all, until they mess with me, which will happen sometime this year. Just hearing this one person talk makes my jaw clench, which is horrible and mean, but probably instinctual until I find a solution.

The "uniform" for teachers at my school- the jersey knit black gauchos and bright t-shirt, sometimes combined with patterned scarf/belt- makes me want to scream (well, in a fashion sense, it's irritating). If you're all going to wear the same thing for some reason, at least make it trendy with the outside world...

I've decided that I'm going to dress librarian-chic for work: no heels, knee-length skirts, ruffled tops, and sometimes black tights with black shoes. I don't know why I was working so hard to look "professional" last year, since I shouldn't be trying to impress anyone with my clothes and I'm much more resourceful for my students when I'm not mad about a blister on my heel.

Finally, I ran into my favorite Borders employee again yesterday, an Indian man who likes to teach me about India while I make a purchase. He placed the home cities of two of my best friends from high school based on their last names and told me about the diversity of languages there. I was buying "No God But God" by Reza Aslan, and he asked me if I was Muslim. I've never been asked that before.