sabbatical

i'm declaring myself "on sabbatical" from work. i'd like to say that i spent today thinking and praying about what i should do about my work situation, but i didn't. i spent my time playing. and it was great.

the rundown:
i woke up and loved on the puppies while andrew got ready for work, then i laid on the couch and watched tv/checked email on the computer.

as i slowly woke up, i chatted with a few people, ate some leftovers for breakfast, and watched an episode of desperate housewives.

then, i said goodbye to the pups and headed out to meet jess at her job. we chatted, and i gave her some suggestions for the website she was working on (since i did work for a web design company), and i accompanied her during her lunch break.

next, i headed over to andrew's work to have lunch with him! we went to moe's, which i don't usually like, but it wasn't bad. while we were there, we watched a high speed car chase in miami that was on the tv. it was crazy.

after lunch, i headed over to oberlin (because i have no life), and i enjoyed "staff training" with them... we learned how to... carve pumpkins! not that that has anything to do with animals, but it has a lot to do with creating a positive work environment and fostering teamwork and healthy competition. though julie and my pumpkin did not win, i would have to say it was the best technical creation. here's a picture of the cfo herself with all the pumpkins and the prize for the winner! (cfo = chief fun officer)

after that, i came home and have been sitting on the couch relaxing/writing lesson plans for tomorrow. ahh, sweet sabbatical.

playing monkey-in-the-middle with my cheese

EDIT: after once again having no children in my first period class, attending a meeting that took my entire planning period and part of my 4th period class, and then attending ANOTHER meeting that left me so angry i was literally shaking, i have taken wednesday off as, what mom likes to call, a "mental health day." perhaps i shall have more happy postings for you later!

as you may have noticed, i have not posted in awhile. i have been following the thumper rule... and i can't do it anymore.

i have been trying to get a full-time job with the vet because i can't stand working at ewa anymore. a number of things have contributed to this, and none of them have to do with students (once again).

last night i met with debbie from oberlin, and she low-balled me on the offer to work full-time as well as suggesting she "didn't need" me at oberlin, but she needs me at glenwood... not where i wanted to work.

so now i don't know what to do and i feel stuck. and there it is.

have a good day.

down day

today kind of stunk.

last night i found out from my mom that her doctors are making her come in to check a "spot" on her other breast... so it is possible she could have breast cancer again.

then today, after making detailed lesson plans for the whole week, my entire first period class abandoned me 45 mins into the 90 minute class for a "college workshop" with unc pembroke... which wouldn't be a big deal if they weren't gone literally every other day for this stuff. and most of the time, they don't even want to go to the college whose fair they're attending! there is one of these things planned for almost every day between now and the end of november, and most of them coincide with my english 4 classes - you know, the only class seniors actually have to pass to graduate on time. it just makes me so mad that they want to know why our kids never pass their eog's and eoc's, but they give them approved excuses to miss nearly half of the classes in a semester!

so since most all of my second period class was also at this thing, i had no second period either - which would have been all good if the entire class had been gone and i could have just not gone to work today or something, but that was not the case, and i was stuck with a wasted day... again.

then i got nothing done during my planning period because i was so blah from the beginning of the day, and over half of the teachers in my building are out for one reason or another - recovering from surgery, tending to a possibly dying husband, sick children, or coming down with strep throat... by 3pm, it was just me, the biology teacher, and the assistant principal.

other than that, i had a case of the blah's and felt very lonely all day. this could have been caused by my lack of sleep last night (andrew was up and ill in the middle of the night), or the weather, or the weird schedule, or any number of things. but i haven't even been able to shake it tonight now that andrew's home.

i hope tomorrow's better.

nothing can be finer than to be in carolina at the staaaaaate fair

so i changed the lyrics a little, but they had to fit! andrew and i went to our second state fair together this year, and despite the cold rainy weather, it was pretty fun!

we woke up pretty late this morning and got ready leisurely. we picked up breakfast at bojangles' which is our weekend ritual, and got mochas to keep us warm on the overcast day. on our way to the fair, we wondered if we'd gone the wrong weekend because there was so little traffic! we sneakily turned down one of the "full" aisles in carter-finley stadium and got a spot in the front row of the parking lot - too cool.

we made our way through the gates and into the fair where the day began the way it should, with food.
(this pic was clearly taken later in the day)

foods consumed today:

• roasted corn on the cob dripping with butter
• chicken gyro
• polish sausage
• cheese fries (they were the worst cheese fries i've ever had - boo!)
• random samplings from vendors all over
• hot-n-spicy dill pickle
• giant eclair
• turkey leg (much better than the one i got last year)
• ice cream made with a john deere engine

all in all, we had a pretty poor showing versus last year's adventures into random-fried-food-land, but i blame andrew's lack of preparation. he obviously forgot to ready his stomach and appetite for the scrumptiousness of the fair, as the onoly things he actually asked for were the chicken gyro and the eclair. all the rest was at my behest. i am not ashamed.

we also had quite the adventures making new friends along the way. we made friends with a couple that we shared a table with at lunch, we made friends with another couple in line for the bathroom, i chatted with a girl on a ride, and we probably would have made friends with a third couple on the ferris wheel, but i avoided that by taking pictures the whole time.
we did NOT make friends with the grumpy woman at the "green" tent that yelled at me for sitting in the ethynol car that a child had just sat in. i thought it was a "photo op spot" - like the place near the giant pumpkins - since there had been a kid sitting there, and it had no "look with your eyes, not with your hands" sign. apparently i was wrong, and she felt the need to ridicule me. a few minutes later, someone else sat in the car and got yelled at too. nevermind the fact that we were all there to learn how to save the world, one compact florescent at a time.
nor, did we make friends with the scary recruiter who, seeing my obama '08 sticker, decided to heckle me for not volunteering to work for kay hagan's campaign. just because i support obama doesn't mean i support hagan. i have no idea what her plans are for the state... and it really ticked me off that he felt he had the right to try and guilt me into working for her! i used the crowds to my advantage and weaseled away from his guilt-trip, but the negative attitude sure took away my appetite for my giant hot-n-spicy dill.

we enjoyed many of the agricultural, craft, and animal exhibits, especially the fact that we can once again hold duckies and chickies.
we found new exhibits, like the national guard's guitar hero competition.
i rode a ride alone because andrew's a scaredy-cat. (i'm the one on the edge with the red jacket)
and i at least got him on the ferris wheel at the end of the night!
we wanted to stay for the fireworks, but it was just too cold, and we are old fogeys now, which means that as i type this, andrew is already in bed. i think i shall join him now!

support your state - go to the fair! and if you're one of those agoraphobics don't worry too much, there is even a tent to get your flu shot! so if you can get over the whole pushing and shoving aspect of the crowds, at least you don't have to worry about catching diseases from them!

for more pictures of the fair, see my flickr page.

my talented husband

many of you know that my school hosted a fundraiser (gala) and asked my husband to photograph it - well technically they asked me to photograph it, but i told them i am not a photographer, so andrew did it. the webmaster at our school took the photos and put this on our school's webpage:

you can click on the link to see the actual webpage or click on the picture to enlarge it to full-size. isn't my hubby so talented?!

thumper rule

if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all.

here's a picture of me from the gala:

here's one of andrew and me, not the best picture, but it's the only one i have:

we started back to work today - teacher workday... kids come back tomorrow. i guess that's all i can say if i follow the thumper rule.

too funny not to post

one of my facebook friends took this picture:
enough said!

purple velvet spandex!?

three things that do not go together... wait, i am getting ahead of myself - let's start over.

the past few days have been awesome, because i've finally started feeling better and taken advantage of the last few days of vacation. yesterday, jessi and i hung out and went riding on her filly, aura. it was great to get to ride again, and ms. aura's doing well for a two-year old. we also did some shopping and lots of chatting. it's so nice to catch up with an old friend!

today, i met her again for coffee and to pick up the dress for the gala tomorrow (i dropped it off at lee's taylor, the best place in the area to get alterations!). i am very scared to look like a hoochie in this dress, but everyone assures me it's pretty and not slutty... i hope they're right. after that, i was planning on grading papers until biblestudy, but page called and asked if i wanted to accompany her to the ballet, and so i had to race home to change clothes! after biblestudy we saw the carolina ballet company's don quixote, and it was awesome! i wish i had pictures, but once again i was busy living instead of photographing! page and i described the characters by their pant colors, and my favorite guy was the purple pants leaping guy. we laughed at how many duels there were over coveted women. i mean, i always have men in brightly colored tights trying to out dance one another for my hand in marriage, don't you?

recent happenings in the korhonen household

well, i've been lying around like a sack of potatoes for about a week now, so i haven't had much interesting stuff to say... here's a play-by-play of the events that have occurred (you know, since you have all been dying of suspense since my last riveting post).



monday-wednesday:
couch and movie marathon



thursday:
cooked and cleaned all day long in preparation of biblestudy. everyone crapped out on biblestudy, and i sat around the entire night waiting for people who didn't come. it was sad.

friday:
chloe got spayed! i teched for her at oberlin, then i had lunch with andrew, waited for chloe to be ready to come home, picked her up, and tended to her for the rest of the night [pictured above, mom and chloe recover together].

today:
we got up and had grandiose plans of all the great things we were going to do today, and then got in a fight over clothes. yay. now i'm grumpy and the weekend will go on as usual.

oh, and you should go here and watch this movie... though i'm sure all of you are already voting, it's a pretty funny little movie.