Passions.

I know I've been AWOL for a while, but I feel bad apologizing for it, especially considering that it probably won't be changing anytime soon. I make no promises to blog more before August 2012. Promises will only disappoint.

That being said, here is a three-panel summary of how I have felt about this quarter (outside my placement classroom, which is full of 32 of the most sassy, curious, grabby, impolite, adorable little 8 year-olds you can imagine, who delight and challenge me every single day).


This is from here. The original can be found here.

I am looking forward immensely to next quarter, which will be three times the amount of classroom work and half the amount of time on campus. Hopefully next quarter I will be visited by the Heavens with professors who are nice, interesting and helpful, rather than a distinctly less appealing smaller combination of the aforementioned qualities.

This fall, I have one professor who is nice and helpful but not interesting; one who is interesting and helpful but not nice; one who is nice and interesting but not helpful; and one who is none of the above. Two are blessedly all three, but one of those classes ended almost a month ago, and one good teacher is hardly sustainable right before Christmas.

Speaking of good teachers, I think I am going to be one. Today I got so excited about a curriculum I would like to plan that I have been researching it for a few hours. I pity those people who haven't found something they love so much they would research it on a Friday night after coming home from a social engagement. What are you waiting for? Go figure it out!

From the archives: November 21, 2004

Tonight I watched Sleeping Beauty all the way through for the first time

After the evil witch Mafeficant (sp?) gets killed.

Me: Man, none of this would have happened if they had just invited her to the party. So the message of this movie is: invite everybody to the party.

From the archives: November 17, 2004

RIP Kierkegaard

Of course, it would be the vegetarian in the apartment who accidentally drops the pet fish down the disposal.
Oh, the paralyzing guilt....

From the archives: October 11, 2004

Actual conversation with my roommates

Important detail: I gave blood today.

Scene: Elisa and Hediyeh, having returned from grocery shopping, are putting said groceries away and talking to Nancy and Alli.

Hediyeh: Hey, Elisa has a crazy story to tell you guys.
Me: I passed out in Brother Bott's class.
Hediyeh: NO! The other crazy story!
Me: (mystified) What?
Hediyeh: About how your friend got engaged after knowing the guy for 13 days.
Me: Oh. Uh, my friend got exchanged after knowing the guy for 13 days.
Alli: Wow.

Dude, I am so in love with Provo it's not even funny.

My best friend

had an elaborate plan when we were in high school on how she was going to meet her future husband. Her plan was to attend art school in Florida, get hired as a Disney animator to work on some sort of cartoon about outer space, and, while sketching at NASA headquarters, meet her husband, who of course would be an astronaut.

Things ended up going slightly differently, but of course she still got her happily ever after.

I, on the other hand, am free to fantasize about these handsome blokes:

These are some NASA astronauts from the 1960s. Seven originals members of the Mercury missions, pictured here during survival training in the Nevada desert. The gentleman front and center is my favorite. Possibly because I have a thing for noses?

Image courtesy of here.

Sometimes I feel sad I wasn't an adult in the 1960s. Then I remember the pilot of Mad Men and I'm like, oh yeah.

On Third Grade.

Things I remember from Third Grade:

1. I turned 9.

2. We moved from the house I had lived in since I was 5, to the same house I am currently living in.

3. At one point I hid in the school library for an entire afternoon and the school almost called the police.

4. It is the first year I can remember being able to write anything longer than a few sentences.

5. We did a unit about the brain/optical illusions. This is when I learned that those damn Magic Eye posters don't work if you only have one eye.

6. My dad worked nights at the post office, so we had to be quiet during the day so he could sleep (this actually might have been fourth grade).

7. I wore a lot of tie dye and vests. My hair was shoulder length.

8. My best friend Molly and I read palms for play money on Market Day.

9. I got teased for months because a group of boys saw me picking my nose.

10. I was so nervous about the first day of school that I got hives all over my body and had to stay home.

I think about teaching a classroom full of kids that are eight-turning-nine and I feel like they are so young and small. But I don't recall feeling small or young in third grade.

My cooperating teacher is in her sixties. She has a dry, wry sense of humor that I'm curious to see if she shares with the kids. I would categorize her as old school, but in a nice way, not an intimidating way. She's very organized and crafty. She made a joke about growing marijuana to supplement her income during our initial interview. That's when I decided I liked her.

The kids in my class are split about even between boys and girls, and approximately into fourths in terms of race: Hispanic, Black, White and Asian. Most of them were at the same school last year. I don't know why I'm thinking abut them this late on a Sunday. I guess I haven't stopped thinking about them since I saw their list of names.

From the archives: September 2, 2004

Humorous quotes from my professors! *cymbal crash*

"English spelling is ... disgusting."
Professor Skousen

"'Whom did you see at the dance?' Now you could say this, maybe to one of your rommates. But you would be branded as some sort of weird ... English Major or something."
Professor Skousen

"I don't know what it is with Mormons and food. Have any of you ever been to a church activity, not including the three-hour block on Sunday, wherein there was no food available? Anybody? [no one in the class of 250 raises their hand]. See? Also, I've noticed that we tend to substitute ice cream for alcohol. You know, normal people, if they want to go out casually with someone of the opposite sex, they go out for drinks. But Mormons, they hit up Baskin and Robbins for a quick ice cream, and if they don't like each other, they just take off."
Professor Campbell

"I am proud to say that I missed my grandfather's funeral to attend class out of fear of missing school. Grandpa was proud too, I suspect, since he taught school in Canada, back when going to school was an honor."
Professor Sorenson

"Welcome to English 325. English grammar. How thrilling."
Professor Skousen

"I did not choose to major in Philosophy, nay, but rather I realized that I had been a philosopher all along and just did not realize it. This is not a career path that one would consciously choose. If I could, I'd be really good at ... business. Or something."
Professor Foster

"The death penalty, you have to admit, caters to this Old Testament sense of justice that we use only when it suits our purposes. Really, I don't see any point in killing more people after the fact, especially since we let them live twenty years before we do it anyway."
Professor Sorenson

"Thank you so much for coming to this department meeting! Please help yourself to the refreshments available out in the open-air atrium ... and by that I mean the sidewalk."
The Department Head (I didn't catch his name, or else I just forgot it)