fun saturday!

this saturday was great :-)

we started the day by making it to daylight donuts, this time to the one in north raleigh (which is far superior to the cary store) in time to snag a strawberry/cheesecake glazed knot thingy and some coffee. it was extremely pleasant :-)

then we went on a dog food/pet supply run and to my parents' house for a visit. on the way, i asked andrew to drive by my old stomping ground (jordan high school) to see how the construction has changed the landscape, when we saw lots of cars parked in the "band parking lot." we decided to stop in, and we found out that it was mcdonald's day - an annual fund raiser where the band plays in the mcdonald's parking lot and a portion of the sales between 12-2pm are donated to the marching band. we went home to my parents' house, and my mother joined us for the event. afterwards, we made a pit-stop at the grocery store and headed back to my parents' place.

we hung out for a while and watched a movie, then i took a shower, and we headed off to kim's birthday extravaganza. we began with a rousing game of (very mature) boys vs. girls kickball where the "ta-ta team" totally kicked the boys' butts... kind of. and by kind of i mean we totally lost, but we played really well, and before we all passed out and headed for the much needed beer consumption, we played the best inning of the game with 3 up, 3 down for the boys -- and i tagged andrew for the last out of the game! it was definitely more fun that i anticipated.

after that, it was lots of cooking, eating, laughing, eating, drinking, eating, dancing, eating, a few rounds of catch phrase (which the ta-tas won again), and oh yeah... eating. despite my exercise explosion at kickball, i'm pretty sure i gained at least 80 lbs tonight.

now andrew and i are winding down by tucking the dogs in to bed and watching pride and prejudice on the couch! sorry, i was having too much fun enjoying the day to bother photographing it!

photobucket phun

the rules: answer the questions below, type each answer into photobucket.com and post any picture from the results.

1. What is your occupation?

2. What is your mother's first name?

3. What kind of car do you drive?

4. What kind of car do you want to drive?

5. Name something you do in your spare time?

6. What thing do you collect?

7. What is your father's name?

8. Are you male or female?

9. Describe your mood right now.

10. What is your biggest fear?

11. What are your three favorite words?



12. What is your name?


so now i think all of you blog-readers should try it :-P

facebook and blog-stalking

i am an unashamed facebook junkie and blog-stalker, but the "new facebook" is terrible, and many of the blogs i frequent have slacked-off or quit altogether. that, coupled with the fact that my now-ancient-iBook moves at a slug's pace... i guess i'll either have to find something else to do or turn to myspace and flickr?

keep on truckin'

that's what my mom always says, just keep on truckin', and that's what i'm doing. trucking, trudging, same thing, right?

the gray days continue, as do the non-blog-worthy issues, but school is going alright, and tonight andrew and i got to go over to jessi and norm's for dinner. it was definitely impromptu, as jess has been out of town for weeks. i didn't know she was back until she messaged me on g-chat this afternoon. i suggested she and i meet for coffee, but instead she invited us over for dinner. when we got there, we had the lovely pleasure of being joined by jennifer, will, and fiona! lil' miss fiona was lovely, as usual, and despite some unfortunate tummy issues was a very sweet little one to be around. the whole group hung out and chatted until the girls broke off and did our girl chatting (fiona included), and the boys talked about boy things.

it was really nice to be around people my own age!

tomorrow is thursday, which brings us one day closer to friday, which brings us almost the weekend... which means if i just keep on truckin' i'll make it to another wonderful weekend. amen, hallelujah!

gray day blues

i have them... and have had them for a week. every day i have time to be outside, it's raining and gray, and every time i don't, it's sunny.

i have some blues going on in my personal life right now too, but they're not blogging material, so i might be absent from this world while i attend to the real one. we'll see. maybe not. i don't know yet... have a few things to figure out.

-em

a difference in class

a few weeks ago, monica wrote a blog about the night and day differences in two of her classes (that were the same prep.), and i have to second her observation.

i have two english 4 classes each day, first and second period, and each day my first period and my second period behave completely differently. first period is full of loud, sometimes rude, rambunctions, and extremely opinionated students. they like to participate, and they especially like to complain. they try, as hard as they can, to get off-topic, and they seldom carry on in-depth discussions because of their frequent lapses into insults and side-conversations. [now, i'm not saying they're out of control or that i can't "manage my classroom", but these are their tendancies.]

my second period class, however, is what i like to call the "ride the wave" class. they go with the flow. they are quiet and seldom argumentative. they do their work (for the most part) with only good-natured whining and complaining, and they don't ask many questions - though they probably should. they turn in mediocre work, with glimpses of greatness here and there, but are happy to fly under the radar. i can be relaxed with them, and usually if first period has stressed me out, second period is able to make me laugh again. and i think, really, the best "classroom management" is appropriate laughter.

anyway, so today i made a great group assignment comprised of discovering sonnets

Group Work Discovery: The Sonnet


Some background information…
· Sonnet, directly translated, means “little song.”
· All sonnets have 14 lines.
· They follow a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure.
· Most sonnets (but not necessarily all!) are in iambic pentameter.


My group has been assigned the ________________ Sonnet.


Your Task: To prepare a presentation to be presented to the class (on Thursday) that teaches them all about this type of sonnet. Your presentation must be interesting, engaging, informative, and include all of the following information:

· For whom is this type of sonnet named?
o Why is this person important enough to have a sonnet named after them?
· What is the form of the sonnet (how are the lines arranged)?
· What is the rhyme scheme of the sonnet (this is the one with the letters)?
· Does it have a “volta” (and what is a volta)?
· What is the topic of this type of sonnet, generally?
· Is it in a specific meter (what is meter)?
o If so, what meter is it?
o What does that mean??
· Read (and copy into your notes) at least 3 of these sonnets.
· Compose at least 1 of these sonnets (per group).
· Create something interactive (an activity, worksheet, quiz, etc.) to engage your classmates in your presentation.


*Each person in the group must have evidence of having worked on this project and must take part in the presentation.

*There will be individual and group evaluations for you to complete regarding your work ethic and your group members’ work ethics at the end of this project.

*Use all the resources available to find this information.

*Remember to cite your sources!

i gave them access to the literature books, dictionaries, and computers. first period came and worked like pros, needing some coaching and guidance to get where they were going. great! i thought, this is one awesome assignment!

enter second period: it was nothing but fussing and fighting, whining and waiting for me to tell them the answers (which i won't do), and whining again when they realized they were running out of time to get things done because of all the time they wasted whining before! i seriously had no patience for that.

but all of this is to reecho the point - what a difference a class makes!

midnight [really 2am] intrusions

i present to you, specimen "a" = watchdog:
quake in the fear of its terrifying exterior!

so last night (this morning), lillie kept growling and barking at something. now bailey has gotten into a bad habit of barking for seemingly no reason, so i kind of shrugged it off and hoped it would stop. i even called out the window (the dogs sleep on the porch) for lillie to stop barking, but she persisted with her low growl followed by a sharp bark. if you have dogs, you know that there are certain barks for certain things - play, fight, warning, etc. this particular bark sounds like it is escaping from her throat where, though she tries, it can no longer be contained. it's a warning bark. then it clicked that it was LILLIE barking, and that she doesn't usually bark for no reason, especially not in the middle of the night.

i tapped the sleeping andrew and asked him if he was going to go check on it, and i was met with a slamming of the covers and a "fine!" which... if you know me, did not set well. i told him to forget it and that i'd go check on what it was. [i have learned, through this year of marriage, 3 things: andrew does not like being woken up - no matter what the reason; andrew does not seem to think that i, as a woman, need protection from scary things; and that no manner of guilt-trip i may provide will change these things.] so i went out and let bailey - our "guard dog" off her leash and told her to go find whatever it was.

now, bailey is great for a lot of reasons, but mostly because she barks really loudly and generally scares the pants off people, and because she won't run away. i knew that if i let her go find this scary thing, she'd probably frighten it off, and she'd come back when she was done or had reached the boundaries of our property. well i was right about her barking and coming back, but i still didn't know what it was lurking in the dark shadows of our woodsy lot, and it seemed more like she was interested in me throwing something for her to retrieve than she was finding this midnight intruder. however, i knew that the thing was still there, because though the barking had ceased, i could still hear lillie's low growl beside me.

lillie is great for lots of reasons as well, mostly that she's really smart, runs INCREDIBLY fast (and quickly too - for dad), and she is committed... to me, to catching bunnies she finds, to the scent of the deer on a trail... to protecting the home... to NOT stopping at the end of our property and returning if i let her chase off scary things like the pitt-bull that kept coming after me in our yard in boone... hypothetically speaking of course - hahaha. so while i knew if i turned her out after it, she would certainly find the scary thing, i also didn't know if she'd ever come back. and i worried, if it was a person, she'd get shot (after all, we do live in johnston county). so i continued to peer through the trees and out towards the direction of her glare but kept her on the porch.

andrew came out to the porch, since i hadn't returned to bed, just as i saw a figure walk past some lights out by the road. "at least they're out by the road and not in the field," i thought. so immediately my mind went on alert. either these people were trying to steal something, or they were making a drug deal on the only shady, uninhabited part of our street (right in front of our home). we continued to watch, as a second car drove up and turned around. still growling from the watchdog, still not sure what's going on. i asked andrew to check it out, but he preferred not to. the two cars' flashers turned on, and somehow that seemed less threatening. so i started heading down the driveway in my pj's and bare feet, bailey at my side. i didn't go very far though because i didn't have shoes on... and my brain was starting to take over and tell my body that it was probably no a good idea to approach unknown people in the middle of the night... in pj's (and more importantly, without a bra - what if i had to run?!).

that's when andrew broke out the phone to call the police. just as he was dialing, the cars began slowly, SLOWLY (like at a speed of .2 mph) pulling up the road. at that moment we realized they were probably just having car trouble and had broken down right in front of our house... perhaps on the way home? andrew had already dialed though, so we asked the sheriff to ride by... a few moments later, a car whizzed past the house, turned around in the cul-de-sac at the end of the road, and whizzed out of the neighborhood.

i guess it was the sheriff... and i guess the whole nocturnal event was nothing more than some people with car trouble, but i am certainly tempted to go get a shotgun and take some classes on how to use it.