Woah

So I finally went through the swag I got on my trips to various music stores for my class with Tom. I got 32 CDs. 15 of them are Hal Leonard. I think I'll hold a coaster painting party. How's the evening of a week from today (Saturday) for everyone?

Post #295

It is fairly early on Saturday morning, but I all ready slept for ten hours and I plan to take a nap later, so I'm not annoyed at being awake right now. I'd put up some witty post about the happenings of my APT so far, but there aren't that many witty things for me to say about it. This school is far more sensible than the one I was at last term--no ban on cellphones, no cramped little designated places to eat, no mandatory cafeteria cleanup for being late to three classes (not in a day or in a month, but for the whole year--who isn't late three times a year?). My mentor teacher is easygoing and good-natured. It's all good.

Elsewhere, I got my car back yesterday. It cost $4300. And fixing the leaky roof will cost more than $500. *sigh* It's not my money, I guess, but I'm wondering how many times my parents are will to juggle the cars around because mine's in the shop. Oooh, I should point that out to them--it's porbably the best motivator I could give them. ^_^

Oh, hey, here's an epic tale of annoyance: I have to go to Teacher's Convention. It is this coming week. I asked around at my school about how to do this and the principal said he had no idea and I had to deal with it myself. So I went and found out that I need a booklet from the ESA (Education Students' Association), and I need to be an ATA member, which comes with being an ESA member. The ESA office is open from 10-3 on weekdays. I didn't have a class last block yesterday, nor did I have anything after school (woot!), so I dashed off to the University to get my ESA membership and my booklet before 3pm. I run over and discover... the office was closed for Reading Week. *pauses for a good glower* Thankfully, I also don't have any classes Monday morning, so I can take that opportunity to run down to the University and get it done then. I'm not sure which I'm more annoyed about, though: not getting the membership and booklet, or being reminded that most University students have had the past week off.

Sleepy

I am very, very tired. The first couple of days of my APT have been really good. There are only two downsides I can see so far: the jazz choir can't read music and the grade 10 band has a few, well, grade 10 students in it. ^_^ The extra-curricular legit band will be my "Whole School Project." The staff room is a place I might actually wind up spending time in and the kids seem to actually want to like and impress me, which just floored me. It was a happy kind of floored, though. ^_^

Outside of my student teaching, things have been normal. Mhy parents got back from Mexico. Did I mention that all ready? I am so tired... My car is still in the shop, but will be ready either tomorrow or Friday. It hasn't been much of a problem, since my dad has been able to drive my mom to work, so I've been driving my mom's vehicle. My dad had cataracts surgery on his left eye today. He'll get his right eye done in a month.

There's a movie on the televsion called "A Touch of Mink." It stars Cary Grant and Doris Day. It's very odd. It has a very ironic sense of humour. I think. I'm really tired. So, yeah, I think that's enough with the blogging.

A List of Things I Miss

1. The cranberry bran muffins my high school cafeteria sold.

2. The X-Files, though I'm not sure if I want to include seasons 8 and 9 in this list. ^_^

3. Knowing the bus schedules for Riverbend thoroughly.

4. Writing notes to friends during boring classes.

5. The glasses I had in grade 12--they were very flattering.

6. Marco, my old penpal.

7. Speaking French on a regular basis.

8. Playing in a band, either classical or jazz.

9. The lownjlounge.

10. The storage space of my room in our old house.

11. Molesty Steve, because he was an institution.

12. Summer, currently.

Diction

Feeling blah. I found mouse droppings in the frying pan drawer. And in the frying pans, too. I microwaved my eggs. I haven't started my pedagogy term paper. I had a topic, but I've been thinking all weekend and I can't remember for the life of me what it was. It's due Wednesday. I hate searching for articles. I've been having trouble putting things into words today. Ebb and flow and ideas and ligature marks. Sardonic and self-aware. It's just a little vignette.

Thank God it's Saturday

I just called up a friend of my parents. He left them a voicemail asking if my dad wanted to buy some kind of cognac or another, and I called back to tell him that my dad was in Mexico. His wife answered the phone, and I asked if I could speak to Charles. When Charles got to the phone, I said "This is Janita Burgess." Charles said "Janita, is your dad home?" I know that it's actually neither, but I'm not sure whether that's rude or nuts...

I had dinner last night with some people I haven't seen in a while. They're friends of Jenilee's that I used to have lunch with along with Jenilee, but, since Jenilee's not in school this year, I hadn't seen them for a while. We went to Boston Pizza in WEM because a couple of girls were going to the shooting range in the mall beforehand. The rest of us took the opportunity to shop. I didn't buy anything, but Jenilee bought a fair amount, despite not needing clothes.

My APT class had a discussion yesterday, triggered by Craig Brennan telling us about his similar experience, about how we're all sick of what we're doing. I, personally, am sick of pedagogical theory. And assessment theory. I want to go back to FAB, sign up for Wind Ensemble and *music* theory, and never set foot inside the Ed Building ever again. I'm not sure if going to student teach would be an acceptable substitute. ^_^ As long as I don't have to explain why diagnostic information and prescriptive information often need to be contradictory. Or be able to perceive ostinato meditation techniques in music. Or justify giving one mark for each correct note in a scale test, seperate from tone, tempo, etc. Can your brain vomit?

I went to the car reapair place yesterday to retrieve some things out of my car. My parents decided to rebuild the transmission, and the length of time that's going to take is longer than I really care to go without my phone charger or parking pass. *sigh* Poor car... Speaking of, I should e-mail my parents.

Not much else has been going on lately. My dog is annoyed that it's too cold for more walkage. My parents come back on Wednesday night. Playing a full-sized tuba makes you sore the next day. Peter's curling today in the annual History and Classics Graduate Student Association's Bonspiel. After my experience last year, I elected to sit this one out. ^_^ And... yeah, that's about it.

Transmission Blues

So my car died on Thursday night as I was trying to drive up the ramp in the Ed Parkade on my way to Ed Band. I managed to push it into a spot and leave it there when Peter picked me up. I didn't even have a parking ticket when I came back to it at 1:oo the next day. Also luckily, I had my mom's Highlander to drive because my parents are in Mexico. The bad part, however, was waiting three hours in my car for the AMA tow truck to show up when I had been quoted 1-2 hours. I was running rather low on gas, so I didn't want to let it idle for too long, and that meant less heat than I would've preferred. When I eventually got home, I had to submerge my feet in hot water because my slippers just weren't able to warm them up.

Anyway, I followed the tow truck to the repair shop in the Highlander, and they said it was probably a transmission problem and they'd have it back for me on Monday. Since it's Tuesday today, you can safely assume that that didn't happen. They did call me on Monday, however, and give me some not-so-great news: The transmission has metal in it and either needs to be replaced ($3000) or rebuilt ($4000). Oh, and have I mentioned that my roof leaks because it's rusted along the top of windshield? Yeah, the metal roof panel needs to replaced. That won't be cheap, either, though I don't know an exact figure because the repair place my car is at now doesn't do body work. Those two things considered together, I'm not sure the car is worth repairing.

On a different topic, did anybody watch Prison Break last night? So sad. :-( So good, but so very sad. :-( That show was originally planned out for two seasons, and I don't know if they're planning anything beyond that, though I hope not. Two spectacular seasons is better than two spectacular seasons and one so-so season, though there's no guarantee what the quality of a thrid season would be. I may just have to buy it on DVD if it's limited to two or three seasons. ^_^

Lastly, I have inferred that Joyce and Kaitlyn no longer use their blogs. Or do you wish to prove me wtong?

Dreams

When I was in high school, I had almost exclusively recurring dreams. This was probably tied to my chronic deja vu, though, unlike the deja vu, the recurring dreams weren't bothersome. In university, I stopped having those dreams and I started dreaming about busses. I don't anymore--I stopped dreaming about busses when I stopped taking the bus regularly. I still dream about busses whenever I start taking the bus again, though, if my car in incapcitated or something. The main content of these bus dreams was always about deciding which bus to take. Certain buses would be faster, or would come at more convenient times, or would get me closer to my destination, or would have friends I could talk to on them, or all kinds of things that made me uncertain which to take. Sometimes I even dreamt that certain buses required different passes and then I had to figure out which passes I had on me and were they current or expired and could I pay fare if I didn't have a pass and, if so, how much was fare?

I'm talking about this because I was just on Tickle, a quiz site, and was taking a PhD-certified dream analysis test. It said that my dreams were motivated/caused mostly by curiosity. I'd rather like to know how that's the case. Maybe I'll dream about it.