This and that from this week

Hung out at Jen and Justin's Sunday night. We ate homemade pizza, watched season two of the Big Bang Theory, and Jen made us some seriously amazing peanut butter cookies. Best I've ever had in my life.

I stopped in at Target for grading pens on Tuesday. Let myself walk through the clothing section. Which ended up being a mistake (sort of) as I ended up buying a bunch of stuff. Curse my love of new, cute clothes. But it was also good, in that I got a lot of things I've been meaning to add to my work wardrobe, all on clearance. And the OSF got a fashion show later that night.

Had honey tangerines for the first time on Monday. Yum. But they've got seeds.


Watched a kid at school learn an important lesson this week. I overheard him dropping a few choice words around one of my favorite kids, and he began to irk me. At lunch, I mentioned to the other teachers that I was disliking this kid, and Sandee and Anthony were shocked, as this kid is considered one of their favorites. Sandee talked to the boy after I'd gone for the day, explaining how "a colleague of hers" (me) had overheard him and gotten the idea that he didn't have very good character. Poor kid felt so bad! And I understand- it sucks when you get caught doing one thing wrong and you feel labeled for it, even when you do a million things right. But what a great lesson for that kid to learn as a high school student- that sometimes you can give off the wrong impression even when you think no one's listening.


I like it when I'm hauling twenty-two books from my car to the library drop-off box and I pass someone who smiles knowingly at me. Because I know they're on the return trip from dropping off their excessive book loans.


While on a special Saturday afternoon visit to Chris' office for some printing work:
Jordan: "Oh, look at that. You've got two monitors."
Chris: "Yeah. Want to see how it works?!"
Jordan: "I'm good."


Fun meeting this week for the charter school. This month they combined meetings for South and Central, so we got to see Brian and Alicia, who work at the North Park classroom. Talked about wedding rings, grading rigor (our own kind of rigor, that is), and walked to Office Depot to search for the optimum grading pen.


Did not find the optimum grading pen at Office Depot. Or at Target. I've got strict criteria here: good roll, comes in multiple colors (preferably some fun colors too), almost looks like a fine tip sharpie, except it does not bleed through. And is not a gel pen. So far the Bic Z4 is the only pen that measures up, but I can only find them online at Office Depot. And shipping's $10 bucks. For four pens.


8 months with Chris has officially begun. He had to work late last night, on the official day, so we stayed in and did nothing.


However, today is turning out to be quite a fun experience: sushi lunch (with best fried rice/vegetable blend I've ever had), stop at the candy store, hit up his work while he completes more of the Friday night project, and soon we'll be off to meet Ryan at Gordon Biersch (with the bill on Chris' boss, since Chris has to work so late so often), and then the National Comedy Theater, where the OSF has never been before.

I ponied up the $60 for the application fee, so I'm definitely in for the teaching credential/ Master's program at National. Good-bye, freedom!

Still working on my writing. It's been a good week, but still coming slowly. I'm hoping to have an official rough draft done for my young adult book by the end of next week. Exciting! I've been motivated by the list of recent ALA winners that just came out for 2010. I haven't read any of the Newbery winners, but I'm looking forward to adding them to my library list soon.