3 Day Weekend

Have we met? Because I love lists. If you didn't know that already, you do now.

1) I'm working on putting lesson plans together at a panicked-type pace these days, simply because as of a week from today, I will Be In Charge of THREE WHOLE CLASSES OMFG! These kids! They will get their learning! From ME! Responsibility be thy name! I realize that I had three straight days off, and I didn't do any actual "planning" per se until today (i.e. put stuff into the Taskstream template that my university requires me to use) but I did do a LOT of thinking and requesting books and movies via the library website.

A caveat: did you realize that the library will only let you put FIVE ITEMS on hold at one time?! That is ridiculous! I need my holds to accomodate both my personal and scholastic needs! I'm wondering if I can go to the library with my teacher ID and tell them that it's totally cool (and actually really necessary) for them to update my capability to put more than 5 things on hold at once.

1.b) In making a lesson plan for Malcolm X, I re-discovered this movie:

Makes you think, doesn't it?

2) Did you know that teachers get a discount at J.Crew? They do. But only if you buy your stuff at a J.Crew store, in person. The arrival of this knowledge makes me wonder what other kinds of discounts I can get. I kind of feel like I did when I moved to England and got my ISIC card and would go everywhere, asking for discounts. As in: "Hi, can I get a discount on this baguette?" "Hi, can I get a discount on this train pass?" "Hi, can I get a discount on this copy of The Daily Mail?" And if I couldn't get a discount, I just wouldn't buy it.

3) Labor Day weekend is like other American holiday weekends in that it means that the cable TV station of your choice will be Having a Marathon. For example--TODAY ALONE!!--TLC has had a Jon & Kate + 8 marathon, followed by a Toddlers & Tiaras marathon, leading up to a Cake Boss marathon. This is all fine and dandy, but I am feeling SOMEWHAT SLIGHTED by the fact that Food Network is NOT having an Ace of Cakes marathon. Should I cut back on my tv consumption? Oh, probably. But look--I need background noise for all the lesson planning.

4) If your significant other volunteers to commandeer cooking dinner, you should let them. BUT--if your significant other volunteers to commandeer cooking dinner, and then announces that s/he will be making prime rib, START SUPERVISING. Last night, Andrew announced his intention to make prime rib for dinner today. I said, okay, cool, let's find a recipe. We did--from one of my favorite favorite recipe blogs. Today, we went to Jewel (because we were smart enough to know that prime rib is expensive stuff, and if we bought it at Whole Foods, we would end up spending $80) to get groceries and other dinner-related necessities. We got there, and asked the butcher to make us a rib roast. He informed us (like I had read last night) that we should plan on serving 2 people per rib, and asked us how many ribs we wanted. Andrew said, "6!!" I said, "Hey, whoa, how about 3 or 4?" I mean, we want leftovers...but not THAT many leftovers. With that information, I went on my merry way, picking out apples and cereal and yogurt. As I'm walking up the canned vegetable aisle, I notice Andrew walking toward me, carrying the Biggest Piece of Meat, Ever. I'm talking a basketball of meat. A yule log of meat. A piece of wood from the petrified forest of meat. It's HUGE. And it is only 4 ribs. And it costs $80. We bought it and brought it home and promptly cut it in half to freeze some. BUT STILL. $80! Imagine if we had gone to Whole Foods! We'd have had to sell the dog!


6) My dad is coming to visit this Friday, and I am SO, SO excited. I realized today that this is the first time, ever, that my dad will have come to visit me by himself and stayed overnight. He's a busy dude, and I'm already making Big Plans so that we can maximize our fun for the short time he's in town. He's picking me up from school on Friday, and then I envision cocktails! Then Kuma's! Then Uncommon Ground (with the dog!) for breakfast! And then maybe the art museum! And then I don't know what! But it's going to be fun!

Anyway, that's all for now. On deck this week: final four days of observation, my first university-led seminar, the necessity of creating a homework sheet, hitting the gym, staying sane, cleaning the house, watching Project Runway, and trying out my dad's air-conditioned seats.