Queen of Rambles

I was not happy when I realized we were having another sub at water aerobics tonight. The last woman was horrible and I really didn’t want to be bored all night long. I shouldn’t have feared. This sub totally kicked our asses and I wish she was our regular teacher. My whole body is aching and I love it. Really, she just did regular moves that most water aerobics teachers do, but she kept it fast paced. I had no problems following her, but most everyone else did. I was especially amused at the incredibly large black man who had no rhythm. It’s weird having a man in the class.

I came home and had to deal with a computer emergency, which made me curse mightily. This afternoon my finger was a little quick on the “remove” button and I ended up deleting our graphics driver instead of ICQ. We didn’t notice till Mike did a reboot and the computer was set at a super low resolution. I got frustrated right quick and decided that instead of being the intellectual hero that I sometimes pretend to be, I’d call up Dell support and play the part of village idiot. After some digging I found that I didn’t need to call–I could chat! I loved having that option. The problem was resolved in five minutes with no wait time. The chat tech lady didn’t “speak” great English, but since the words were written I was able to figure out the meaning without getting confused. I am a very visual learner and don’t do well with auditory information.

On a totally different note, being in a cross-cultural marriage can be incredibly amusing at times:

Mike: Are you tired?
Carrie: Yes. Do I look it?
Mike: We have a saying. . . What are those birds that eat carrion?
Carrie (wondering what the heck carrion eaters have to do with anything): Ummm. Vultures?
Mike (excited): Yes! Vultures! You look like a vulture!

Apparently my neck was leaning funny and there is a saying in Swedish that when you are tired and your neck is drooping you look like a vulture.

It’s so nice to be back home with my honey, but I sure have missed chasing Braxton around today. Torapines asked me what the best part of my trip was, and I told her it was bonding with Braxton. He is at the age where he really doesn’t like strangers, but for some reason he took right to me. He is not an affectionate child AT ALL, much to my sister’s dismay (she’s hoping her little girl will be cuddly), but when he gets really tired he’ll come up and hug your leg and lay his little head on your knee. It’s just the sweetest thing ever. Otherwise he never hugs or kisses people, just the dogs.

I’ve been catching up on blogs today and just have to say I am SO GLAD I am not a regular teacher anymore. I hated hearing people without a clue get snarky about teachers’ long summer vacation when it is simply not true that teachers are free for three months. I am so glad I don’t have to go to any workshops, take any graduate classes, write any essays, develop any curriculum, hound any students (I was newspaper advisor, and we always put out a paper the first day of school), and so on and so forth. It varies by school and district, but most of the summer work doesn’t involve any incoming money. In fact, in the poor little district I worked in we rarely got reimbursed for the costs of workshops. They are required by the state to maintain teaching credentials, so if you want to keep your job you go to them and pay for it out of your own pocket. I’m glad I get to spend my summer doing what I want, not sitting in hot rooms with other bored teachers. Teachers truly make the worst audiences and it is often very annoying to sit in a room with people who won’t be quiet and listen to the speaker. I’m such a damned goody-goody.

Maybe I’ll go sew another quilt block before I go to bed. I really need to get two quilts done before the baby comes. Both are about half done. I think I can do it if my back cooperates.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2005 at 6:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.