I made the bad choice of going to the Humane Society on Monday, just to visit the animals. I am so sensitive about pretty much everything everything (except people who cut me off) and I saw a cat who was so cute that I couldn't just leave him there. It was an impulse buy! :) His name is Oliver, like Oliver Twist, because he was orphaned when his owner was taken to prison (the police brought him to the shelter. He's so adorable.

A strange thing I heard on the Fox News Channel:
*When interviewing the "Vampire" gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, a reporter said, "Well, you worship Satan, which could be hard to overcome, but your education plan is good."

This is such a diverse state! Just when I think I understand Minnesota life, something bizarre pops up. I think I'll always be a New Hampshire native...although I guess I never completely understood "Live free or die."

My Favorite Things

Days off from working,
and freshly cleaned tables,
Urban Outfitters,
and sesame bagels,
beds from Ikea,
my Tibetan ring,
these are a few of my favorite things.

Fa-la-la lattes,
and fresh, springtime breezes,
a plate of triscuits with sharp cheddar cheeses,
New York Times' Op-eds,
and Dickens' writings,
these are a few of my favorite things.

In staff meetings,
or hot airplanes,
other times I'm mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
and then I don't feel so bad.

My week...

*Five of my students who don't speak any English- and whose parents don't speak any English- did not understand the field trip forms that were sent home only in English. So I spent one morning running around the school, arguing that all forms should be sent home in Spanish as well and desperately trying to get my students permission to go. I worry so much about them: one girl cries everyday because the days are so short! And I can't imagine what they daydream about during the hours of school when they have no idea what's going on. I printed 10 new Spanish books for them last night...but that's not enough at all.

*Kwadwo walked across the 2nd grade room to say "You look nice today, Miss Walters." It was so sweet, after my morning of running around talking to parents liasons and the principal.

*My classroom looks so colorful now! I put up photos of influential immigrants- there are so many more than I thought, including the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, Sen. Mel Martinez from Florida, and Betty Nguyen from CNN. My students were so excited! I should have thought of that before. It must be so hard when there are so few role models of English language learners.

I need a drink tonight...does anyone want to go out?

The Japanese word "chokuegambo" describes the wish that there were more designer-brand shops on a given street.

Reading this on Cecily's blog made me wonder: what words have Americans created that somehow hint at cultural predispositions?

Well, "super-size" (verb) is one...

Since I always need to have the tv on while I'm working at home, I decided to do a double-feature today. I just remembered how much I adore the movie "Babe." There is tendency for me to anthropomorphize all animals anyway, so it just saves me the trouble. Plus, it looks like the little piggy is wearing a toupee...there's nothing cuter than that.

A Psychological Diagnosis
In honor of the new medical diagnosis page in the New York Times magazine, which is so interesting, here is an inconclusive diagnosis of my listening problem.

Symptoms:
An inability to recall oral directions, especially multi-step instructions with no visual modeling. Cannot remember heard comments in passing. Attempts to compensate for the problem include excessive usage of post-its. Acted as secretary of a group in college, but could not type and listen to the dialogue at the same time (which led to some confusion). However, has great difficulty focusing on a task in silence: there must be noise for her to study. Without background noise, she becomes increasingly distracted by tangential thoughts and becomes philosophical. (For example, cooking in silence leads to her standing still, licking a spoon in a trancelike state, contemplating what it would be like to attend Le Corden Bleu in Paris- how much French would I need to know to follow the cooking directions?). She feels that the louder the background noise when she's focusing on a task, the more she has to contintually refocus her attention on that task, which actually increases her capacity for productivity.

Family History:
Grandfather has limited audio recall as well- especially when listening to directions when not accompanied by a visual guide. Maternal aunt was diagnosed with audio dyslexia (which means she has difficulty maintaining the order of words when listening?)

Diagnosis: Hmm...I think I have audio ADD. I need constant audio stimulus or I start to have the most random thoughts! I don't watch a lot of tv, but I almost always have it on at home because the noise keeps me focused. I also need to write down every single instruction or note at work. Which is why I'm addicted to sticky notes (of all sizes) and making lists. I can't just ask myself what I need to do, because I don't trust my memory:)

I'm really sorry if there are times when it seems like I haven't been listening to my friends! I stopped telling people about my listening issue for a while because of the way the teacher in my student-teaching placement treated it. Whenever I made a mistake, like not remembering some random and inconsequential information, she would say "I know you have your problem, Nicole, but you're going to have to get over it if you want to be a teacher..." Her tone was so mean that I'm always afraid that people will think I'm making it up or I can't compensate for it. But I usually can;) Isn't that bizarre?

Our school is so diverse in languages, economic situation, and emotional needs. It makes me question what I know about my students every day and makes me feel so grateful to have had the childhood that I did. Today I had to talk a student out of biting himself- actually cutting the skin on his arm with his teeth- and try to stop him saying that he hates himself and deserves it. And it was just a moment during the day. I didn't have time to process it until now. The little boy has developmental and emotional disabilities and he kept saying "I'm stupid because I can't stop talking and I always have to leave the room." I can't stand that any child feels that way. The problem was soon taken over by his own teacher, and our amazing social work and psychological staff are probably addressing it, but it's such a horrible thing to see...

There are also things that I can't assume about any of my students. I can't ask them to do research for homework, because almost none of them have internet or computers, or encyclopedias. Today, I gave a few students postcards to color (they missed the activity before vacation). But all of them told me that they don't have anything to color with at home. I can't imagine a 8-yr-old who can't color! How can I teach them to be independent and creative thinkers when they can't find the answers to their own questions or express themselves artistically at home? Although I'm sure they all find ways, and I in no way pity them, I still wish I could give them everything my parents gave me, all the things I ignorantly expected that every 8-year-old girl was entitled.

So, I've decided to write to Oprah:) My students represent a new generation of immigrants in American history. All of our ancestors came to American in some capacity and in some way relied on the kindness of strangers (like Blanche Dubois!). Why have we forgotten that? My grandparents spoke Polish and Russian as first languages. Neither went to college, but they fought and struggled, in ways I can't imagine, to support their children to success in this country (although my grandpa didn't receive a warm reception as a Polish man in the army in the 40's). And all of my Dad's siblings went to college, three had PhD's and two have Master's Degrees. Not all of my students have parents who have the time to support them to that extent...but they deserve every opportunity.

If you are ever in a restaurant that has free crayons for kids, please swipe some for my students! I'm going to start a collection:)

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before?
I got my teaching license, a full-time job, and my own parking space. 

2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I never make them. I usually make changes during Lent.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?
OMG, I didn't even go to Canada.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
A nice big bed, a new car (which I'm getting this Spring!), a lesson-planning schedule for work, and a brilliant and sweet man (Anderson Cooper's been too busy).

7. What date from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Two: March 6, because our extended family changed irrevocably, and it still doesn't make sense to any of us; and August something, when I finally got a job, a week before I had to either start substitute teaching (and live with my aunts) or move home.  

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting a job! It's my first actual job.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Losing touch with my ESL friends, because we're all so busy with our new jobs. We're starting a book group this year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had the worse cold of my life last week. For 4 days, everytime I coughed, I couldn't stop until I started drinking water or ate a cough drop. I had a horrible tickle in my throat that would even wake me up in the middle of the night.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I don't know. I love buying books for my students, especially ones that give them confidence by showing their culture. I finally found an Arabic-English picture dictionary at the Arab-American Museum in Dearborn, MI, which makes me so happy, especially after starting to look for Arabic books in Minnesota through kind of sketchy stores. I love my mini-sharpie too; it's cute and resourceful!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Wow, my family. They are so sweet and supportive. Papageorgio got me a digital camera so I can tape my students' presentations! Hermano, who takes care of me like a big brother, even though he's only one in stature:) And my friends, who always make me laugh.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
All of the people involved with not helping after Hurricane Katrina depressed me. And I was appalled when one of my students was asked to interpret for his family when they received their eviction notice. People who don't have sympathy for immigrants and children's sensitivity make me so mad.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Surprizingly, to food. I love grocery shopping! But almost half of the food I bought went bad before I had time to eat it. I'm going to start making a weekly plan, so my cart isn't bigger than my stomach. 

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going to Chicago for my grandparents' anniversary! It was such a needed break from work.

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?
"Contigo" by Federico Aubele. I really liked Brazilian techno/tango music this summer, which sounds a bit strange, but it reminded me of Barcelona, and I listened to it while I ran.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? I honestly can't remember how I felt last year. I think I was stressed out by my coursework. But Christmas was so much fun.
ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer, which isn't saying much since I was living off loans last year. I'm going to have to start paying back my loans this month :(

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Spent time with friends, volunteered, gone to church (now that I finally found a nice one).

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Obsessed about my job.

20. How did you Christmas?
With all of my mom's family, as usual. It was so crowded though, that next year is going to be different.

22. Did you fall in love in 2005?
No.

23. How many one-night stands?
There's no graceful answer to that question...

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It's so altruistic and sweet, even if it's a bit forced. And I like Grey's Anatomy. I watch so much CNN, though.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I don't really hate anyone. There are some people who have such different interests that I don't want to hang out with them, but that's fine.

26. What was the best book you read?
Paris to the Moon, by Adam Gopnik. I miss Paris and my life would be perfect if they spoke Spanish there, because then maybe I could justify going again.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Ringside, the New Pornographers, and Embrace.

28. What did you want and get?
A job! After the torture of job-searching this summer, I'm so lucky that it all worked out in the end.

29. What did you want and not get?
A classroom to teach in, a guy to have fun with, and a dog.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I can't remember. I almost stopped going to movies because I don't have much time. I liked the new Pride and Prejudice- the acting was so good.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I took two Praxis exams (education tests for licensure) and had dinner at Aunt Ali's.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I want to find a fun and fulfilling volunteer position. I'm not going to do Habitat for Humanity again, since I have minimal construction skills:) So I'm still looking. 

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?
It's all about dressing against type: I don't want to look like a teacher! So I wore a lot of nice button-down shirts and tweed skirts. My favorite work-clothes store is Ann Taylor. But, it was fun on the weekends to wear my inappropriate clothes, which is pretty much all of them.

34. What kept you sane?
My students' enthusiasm kept me dedicated to my job.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Anderson Cooper for brains, but Clive Owen for brawn;)

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The aftermath of Katrina.

37. Who did you miss?
hermano, my grandparents, ECM

38. Who was the best new person you met?
My radio friends are the best, because it's nice to have guy friends that I can count on. Chris even offered to chaperone when my sketchy relative was hitting on me!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005.
Rudeness usually has nothing to do with you and kindness actually works better in fixing it. It's also shown me that hyper-peppiness can sometimes be a manipulative tool (in a positive way) while working at a school.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"Oh, simple thing, where have you gone? I'm getting old and I need something to rely on"- Keane

Happy New Year...especially to you:)

I have the worst cough I've ever had in my life. It starts like a normal cough, but it works itself up ( it has a mind of its own) to the point when strangers on the street are saying "Oh my gosh, are you alright?" It's horrible.

Today I got to one of my favorite things, exploring an ethnic neighborhood in a city. It's always like a treasure hunt. It was really special today, though, because I went to Hamtramck, MI, which is the largest Polish community in the United States... my own ethnicity. Being in Detroit, it's pretty rundown, but the Polish Arts Center was amazing. I found absolutely delicious tea, a Russian-Jewish-immigrant children's book, a recipe book, soup mix, marshamallow candy, a "If you're Polish, smile" pin, and a frame painting of Christmas in Krakow. I'm lethal with a credit card in any store like that- as if I didn't already go crazy at the Arab-American museum:) But I'd never seen a doll with a turban before! It was an impulse buy, regardless of the fact that all children should see toys that represent their culture.

I wish I was more closely connected to a distinct culture; American society is so diverse that customs seemed more diluted, and less sacred. I was friends with such a diverse group during high school, and I loved learning about the foods and traditions they had to pass down, but I really didn't have much to share (except maybe to explain Episcopalianism, which most people don't know that they already understand). I think that was the reason that I wanted to study languages; I can't imagine living in close proximity with a population of people and not being able to communicate with them. And I wanted to escape this American bubble, which, even though it's huge and diverse within itself, can feel claustrophobic and possessing unfair limitations.

Whew.
The past three days went by so quickly!

Friday: We arrived in Marshall and moved into my grandparents' house. There were 17 of us, which is smaller than usual. John and I worked all evening on our big present for our parents. He taught me so much about imovie- I am in love with it! Fading out the sound, freezing the picture, and the double fades are sweet:) That evening, in the typical independent style of my family, we stayed home while everyone went to the early church service...when I was little, we always went to midnight church. I just did my best to stay awake. There was something mystical and kind of medieval about being up that late to celebrate Christmas, and everyone in my immediate family agreed, so we went later. My sequenced, midnight blue top was a little too nightclub for a small-town church, though. Everyone was in jeans and festive sweaters! We all had fun, though, especially my mom, who likes to sing Bass, alto, soprano, and the descant, and she alternates between those at any given time during the hymns. It's really hard to stay on key standing next to her!

All of the kids got to open one present on Christmas Eve, which is something brand new, but which I suggested, Minnesota wisdom apparently, to dissipate the melee that usually is Christmas Day with 17 people. I got pink fleece gloves, but none of the bedlam was averted. So much for that sage advice.

Saturday: I woke up at 6am, after about four hours of sleep, to open my stocking with everyone else. My brother got the best, um, loot: Che Guevara lip balm, sock-monkey bandaids, and Napoleon Dynamite chapstick. We opened presents for another 6 hours, with two breaks, until the end of my cousin Eli's presents, when he started screaming and we had to stop. My parents, who are way too generous, got me a digital camera that I can use at school. I can record their presentations now, and show them at conferences! Later in the afternoon, everyone cooked or watched the Pistons. I made a list of Spanish verbs I can use at school. My favorite is subrayar, because I must sound so gringo-ish saying "draw a line under the word, like this" over and over. In the evening, everyone tried to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" over the twins yelling. My attention span has gotten so small after working with 8-year-olds, so I made Hootycreek cookies.

Sunday: All of us got dressed up to have our family portrait taken, which was my grandma's anniversary present. Somehow it only took 30 minutes to finish. After lunch, we drove to my great aunt and uncle's house, which is an amazing, half-finished house in the woods near Kalamazoo, Michigan. They delighted us with stories of their travels to Rome and Ecuador, and my uncle thought it was so funny that I thought that the pictures of them eating guinea pig were disgusting, and so we got to see those a lot. My cousin, who's 29, lives in Rome, and is an incredibly bad influence, promised to show my brother around when he gets there. Oh well. He can't get in much more trouble than a party when he needs to take someone to the ER with a stab wound, and that already happened. Whew.

ps-listen to Emmanuel played by Chris Botti. It's the most beautiful trumpet playing I've ever heard. I'll probably never do anything that well in my life!

I missed the holiday fun.
I missed my favorite part of Christmas, which isn't actually the day or the presents, but the anticipation and corresponding activities. Those include: cookie-frosting, snowman-building, movie-watching, fire-building, sledding, and gingerbread-house-decorating. Since we didn't arrive at my grandparents' house until yesterday, all of those things were already done.

John and I still need to finish editing our parents' present, which is a kind of "This is your life" movie, with clips of us talking about them all over Ann Arbor (where we lived when we both were born and where they live now). With all of the takes we did, the blooper reel will probably be the best part.

Happy Hannukkah Eve, Merry Christmas Eve, Kickin' two days until Kwanzaa, um...or just have a good weekend!

This clip, The Chronic of Narnia, from SNL, is funny...those cupcakes look delicious!

Highlights from my grandparents' anniversary party in Chicago:

*Going to the Mexican Fine Arts Center again. It's one of my favorite museums. I found color-your-own Diego Rivera murals postcards! Including one portrait of Edsel Ford, which might be the most random thing ever. I'm going to give them to my students so that they can write me letters over vacation.

*Our amazing head waiter, Seymour, who took care of my cousin Weezer after she spilled a huge bowl of ravioli all over her white shirt. She even got to meet the chef. It was really sweet.

*Millenium Park. The cloud sculpture is beautiful.

ps- I love this cold! I sound like a cabaret singer. Does anyone remember the episode of Friends when Phoebe tries to keep her nasal voice by catching more colds? With the bugs passing around my students, I could probably keep this up for the rest of winter...if I started shaking each of their hands at the end of the day.

I have a bad day once every other month, when I feel like the amalgamation of disappointments, stresses, and seeming failures of the previous weeks compound into a helplessness that almost clouds my vision of reality. Depression runs in my family, and by now I've learned how to cope with it, usually by thinking of how blessed I am in light of the struggles going on every day throughout the world. Some small hope always wakes me up from the horrible, downtrodden feelings, and my outlook is immediately shaken back into a pleasant reality.

Tonight I turned on "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and I was filled again with childlike enthusiasm and anticipation for Christmas. It's amazing how something like Linus's retelling of the the Christmas story can restore that hope...

While I was cramming to finish reading an article about the correlations between reading comprehension and reading speed and accuracy (for our grant seminar), I realized that I am still using the exact same strategies that I reiterate to my students every day: rereading, context clues, predictions, self-questioning. They are all strategies that we do unconsciously, so it's interesting to see my students struggle with them for the first time. I hope someday, when one of my students is reading Shakespeare, he or she will remember (fondly?) the days when Miss Walters made them reread Lon Po Po (the Chinese version of Little Red Riding Hood) multiple times to make sure that every word was understood through the text.

I loved reading such a hard article for our seminar! I actually miss the hours and hours of reading that I did for education classes; it's so abstract that you sometimes want to rip it up, but I long for the subtle thrill of mastering a difficult article (like L1-L2 acquisition based on phonemic awareness and interlanguage). Those days seem so manageable compared to trying to teach a student who only speaks Arabic how to read English. Today, she got really mad at me and wrote "no no no no" on her entire paper before I realized she was upset.

This week seems hazy. I am in such a coasting slide towards vacation, and yet so many different things happened this week that time feels like it's standing still. Today I told my students a general outline for how we would be applying the vocabulary for the rest of the week, like "tomorrow, we will share our new words, the paragraphs that they are in in our story, and the context clues we used to understand their meaning. Then, the next day we will compare and contrast the story with our own lives, using the vocabulary to write meaningful sentences that show that we understand the story. Then, on Friday, we will produce a class summary of the story, using the vocabulary and text-to-self stories, which will demonstrate our understanding as a class and show to everyone that teamwork helps us all to learn." They all looked at me for a stunned few seconds and then one persnickity boy called out, "Haha! Tomorrow's Friday!" Oops. I was feeling enthusiastic about those plans, too ;)

As I was leaving school, one of my second-grade students, who I work with in his regular classroom, yelled my name in the hall. He wanted to give me one of his birthday pencils that he had brought to share with his class. I asked him if he was sure -fancy pencils are a luxury for many of my students- but he said "Oh, Miss Walters, I have too many anyway," in his cute, Spanish-accented voice. So he gave me a "Student of the Week" pencil and eraser. That kind of kindness makes up for parts of my job like 90-minute meetings about entering assessment data when I don't even give standarized reading assessments. And listening to my principal sing "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" as a morale booster.

*Congratulations to my Dad! He now has 10 people working under him at Pfizer (6 more than before). Some of those people actually report to other people, who report to him: so he's a third-tier research fellow. And his birthday is tomorrow... *

The War on Christmas...
is pretty much the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! If you really need to get your spiritual fulfillment from a stranger at the mall, a clerk at city hall, or a card from the President, maybe you have other faith or diversity issues to work through. You can always go to church and knock yourself out saying "Merry Christmas." I feel kind of uncomfortable when sales clerks say it to me...and I celebrate Christmas! I prefer separation of church and commercialism.

This is a interesting article from the New York Times. Some of the people working for Fox News are crazy...especially Bill O'Reilly.

Three things:
1. I've christened my bathroom the "fiesta" room. Not because I plan to throw parties in there, which actually now sounds like a potentially fun idea:) but because I put up my Mexican holiday flags, my sun mask from San Antonio, and my lava lamp. It's so much more fun now to brush my teeth. I just hope everything doesn't fall down from the steam when I take a shower. That's a risk I have to take when adding a little spice to any room.

2. I completely disagree with the PG rating of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." In terms of how much it could scare a child, I think it should have been rated R...I was scared, and granted that I scare very easily, it was still something I could have imagined making me cry and have nightmares when I was little. The symbolic sacrifice scene (I won't say of whom) was brutal and almost maniacal, with many soldiers looking like something from a horror movie. And I felt, when I was little, that seeing an animal die in a movie was ten times worse than a human (which is still true and why I walked out of March of the Penguins). There were even more deaths in the movie as well, probably hundreds in the battle scene, as well as multiple wolf maulings. Otherwise, I thought it was a really sweet movie. Just not at all for children, who don't have the developmental skills to separate fantasy from reality.

Oh, and I remember being so mad the first time I ate Turkish Delight, after reading about it in "The Chronicles of Narnia." It's just gelatin covered in powdered sugar! I had pictured them at least made of chocolate, because why would Edmund betray his siblings for gumdrops?

3. Please call or email me if you're not busy anytime this week or next (and you live in Minnesota). I want to see everyone before I leave for 10 days on the 21st. I'll be in Chicago for my grandparents 50th Anniversary party all next weekend, which I'm overly excited about! I love that all the silly family traditions sneak out when we're all together.

December 8th, La vie en froit
Have you ever gone into the Gap, just looking for a cute pair of mittens, and they're all over $40? Sometimes, a small part of me wants to do this...

I was listening to "La Vie en Rose" by Edith Piaf at school today and it made me miss Paris. I know that it's a cliche to love Paris, but what I love about Paris is the dissonance of French culture...there is little cookie-cutter suburban culture, dismal, mass-produced, boring and bland Americaness there. McDonalds has fruit-filled brioche breakfast muffins and shrimp in the salads. The ice tea is bitter, the waiters are often unapologetically arrogant, and they don't even sell prom dresses in their department stores (it was that time of high school and I checked). And then when I did buy a dress, I tried it on behind a curtain in the corner of a small store, with a tiny bichon-frise in the dressing room with me:) Old men in berets hit on you and it doesn't seem creepy...it's whimsical.

Here is a my favorite quote from Adam Gopnik, in Paris to the Moon:
The hardest thing to convey is how lovely it all is and how that loveliness seems all you need. The ghosts that haunted you in New York and Pittsburgh will haunt you anywhere you go, because they're your ghosts and the house they haunt is you. But they become disconcerted, shaken, confused for half a minute, and in that moment on a December at four o'clock when you're walking from the bus stop to the rue Saint-Dominique and the lights are twinkling across the river- only twinkling in the bateaux-mouches, luring the tourists, but still...you feel as if you've escaped your ghosts if only because, being you, they're transfixed looking at the lights in the trees on the other bank, too, which they haven't see before, either.
It's true that you can't run away from yourself. But we were right: You can run away. (270).

After feeling suffocated in suburbia all through high school, I'm afraid of the tedium and sterilization of a routine and slowly stiffling life. While I'm too busy to feel that way now, I see glimpses of it at school and it scares me. Part of me wants to abandon this next year and run away. I almost want to try something new...if only to avoid being in a rut, which I know is a horrible reason to do anything. Part of me wants to go to law school, though or get an architecture degree. Maybe then I wouldn't be working in the math supply room and bus entry room, which is either freeeeezing cold or like a sauna, so I'm always either stripping (which always involves a still-teacheresque bottom layer) or piling on the layers so I look like a marshmellow. I know it's the whole paying-your-dues thing. Grr. I kind of hoped that the five years of higher education were somewhat factored into my dues. I feel like I paid quite a pretty penny during my 100's of hours at Starbucks on Forsyth and Handley.

Life in the Frozen Tundra
So I've been talking to people in other states about the level of cold there, and I've heard them complain...well, there is really no reason to complain about anything until you've lived here ;) When I walked to my car this morning, I was reminded of my issues with Minnesota last year: why would people choose to settle somewhere and establish a city in a place where they couldn't even go outside for three months of the year? It's actually inhabitable! My fingers were shocked by the temperature (about 3 degrees) and didn't stop throbbing for five minutes in my car. Grr. I think Minnesotans have some amount of necessary amnesia that sets in in June, when it is absolutely beautiful and perfect in this state: "Oh, I can last the winter...it's not that bad." But then you risk frostbite running (really fast) to a post box and then you remember that this is what actual cold feels like and it won't end until March.

My weekend was so busy! I went to the staff holiday party with my dad, which was actually so much fun. It was at Benchwarmer Bob's, which made me laugh all night. We played fun, steal-other-people's-prizes kinds of games and my dad had the nerve (as an outsider) to steal from the principal! Some of my co-workers seemed annoyed to realize that they were old enough to be my parent, but oh well.

Then I ran in the reindeer run on Saturday morning. It was freezing, but so beautiful with the snow on the lake. So many people make costumes to run in...my favorites were the Pac-Man (with about 10 characters), Mary and Joseph runners, and the cowbell chorus ("...the only prescription is more cowbell!") My aunt and I tried to jog and sing carols, but it didn't really work...until we found someone running with a karaoke machine who let us sing along. My dad froze in the coffee tent, and my calves are still quite tight, but I got a cute t-shirt, so I'll write it off as fine holiday fun.

Then we drove down to St. Olaf's so see my brother, meet his girlfriend's extended family, and watch their holiday choir concert. It was fun...my brother is the funniest singer of the whole 300-something member choir, which is saying a lot.

Yesterday I watched a lot of movies, decorated my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, and finally bought more huge post-its. I love them so much! They're really useful in all situations:)

Other updates, summarized:
*my computer died. I feel completely cut off from the world! I won't get in back for 9 days:( But that gives me a lot more to do at work:)
*I've been feeling the need to recapture my youth...eat multiple candy canes, drink Kool-aid, and play old school games. I wonder if there's someone who wants to play video games with me.
*I'm going to buy a big new bed this weekend and finally move back into my bedroom. Apparently all the huge bugs have died, or maybe just realized it's too dangerous to come out of the radiator since the vacuum cleaner is always right there.
*Blogulator (I thought you might like a shout-out;)- "Murder by Death" is showing at the Uptown in a few weeks...do you want to go with?
Have a good week! And try not to freeze.