this week.

this week, i liked 3 out of the 4 days that i taught. the odds are improving.

this week, i had two 15 hour days. as in, i left my house at 6 and got home at 9. parent teacher conferences.

this week, i learned that parents create 75% of the problems with students. "my child has an F in your class? what can he do for extra credit to bring his grade up?" nothing. teach him to do it right the first time. there is no extra credit in life.

that's what i wanted to tell them. but i didn't.

this week, i quadrupled my normal caffeine intake.

this week, i wore my red tom's to school and all of my students thought i was really cool.

this week is over. halle-freaking-lujah.

an amy divided against herself might not be able to stand.

this is a conversation i recently had with myself:

me: i hate this. there is no WAY i can do this for the rest of my life. these little monsters don't want to learn, they only want to be entertained. i'm not a freaking circus performer! why am i even doing this again? all i ever hear anyway is "oh yeah i had french in high school--i don't remember any of it." so what's the point of my career again? oh right. glorified babysitting, with actually about the same wage rate that i got when i was 15. awesome.

me: come on amy. you can do hard things. you are not a quitter. you will not let snot-nosed 15 year olds beat you. even if their french is horrible. it's ok if they couldn't form a coherent sentence to save their life. be realistic. be patient. of course they want to have fun. they're 15. they have the attention span of a chimpanzee on speed. humor them a little bit.

inner struggle. most likely to be continued until november 30th.

deformities vs. verbs

girl: "you know why nursing school sucks? because i spend all day studying about babies with deformities so then i'm scared to have my own babies because they're going to die or be deformed and then i come home and cry because the kids i work with are deformed and handicapped and it makes me really sad."

me: "oh. well...my kids can't conjugate verbs...and it makes me...sad...too..."

fail. my life is not that hard. thanks for the dose of perspective, universe.

boom.

ever wonder what it looks like when i have a mental breakdown? kinda like this:

when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when terrorists try to capture the king in a garbage truck...

last night, i had a dream that maria and captain von trapp got divorced. maria went back to the convent (with an updated 'do), and the captain became a drunken vagrant living on the streets.

i was heartbroken and waited hopefully for the end of the dream when they would reconcile their differences, the captain would sober up, and they would joyfully reunite.

unfortunately the dream switched to an anachronistic plot involving louis XIV being married to marie antoinette, and their lives were threatened by terrorists in a garbage truck that set fire to paris in an attempt to capture the king.

now i'll never know the fate of the broken von trapp family. i'd like to think they got back together. i mean, they fought the nazis with song and dance, and then crossed the alps on foot. that creates a bond that stands the test of time, right? RIGHT???

caffeine wreaks havoc on my body

for a detailed explanation of the origin of this brilliant business plan, please visit: the lovely grace stephenson's blog

also, i had a 32 oz cup of dr. pepper at 9:30pm. this was a bad decision. i hardly ever drink caffeine, so when it hits my blood stream i am like a terrier on crack. my body shakes, i type at the speed of light, and everything is so dang funny i can hardly stand it. this was especially funny, but i've watched it when i wasn't hopped up on stimulants from mcdonalds and it was still funny then too.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

thank you alison for bringing this to my life.

speaking of alison, i miss you. and holli.


also, my friend katherine had HUGE marshmallows at her house. i stuffed two of them in my mouth and subsequently drooled all over myself. it was really one of the finer moments of my life.



i'm going to crash in approximately 10 minutes. bye.

...this is just how my face is.

today i realized that i generally have four set facial expressions when i observe a class. they are muted versions of rather extreme emotions.

it generally starts out as this:

extreme boredom. notice how i'm trying to appear attentive and interested by the uplifted chin and semblance of eye contact.

then it devolves into this:

this generally happens when the kids speak. it's kind of the tamed version of a "oh my sweet mercy what are they saying?" expression.

which then shifts to this:

which is when i am actually really trying to figure out what language they're speaking, but failing.

ultimately, my face gets stuck in this position:

trying desperately to quell the rising horror at the massacre of my favorite language. bless their little hearts, they try so dang hard.

my days are numbered.

high schools are freaking cesspools of illness and disease.

every day my immune system is bombarded by who knows how many germs. with every cough, sneeze, sniff, and various other sick sounds people produce, i can feel my defenses starting to cave. i can sense the headache, sore throat, and stuffy nose all lurking on the borders of my white blood cell fortresses.

i am a sitting duck.

this is how my brain works.

when i kill bugs, namely spiders, i always have this slightly irrational thought process. of course the civilized thing to do would be to dispose of the smashed-to-a-bloody-pulp creature in a wad of toilet paper. but i can't help but want to leave it on the floor/wall/whatever, as a warning to his friends. like, "learn from your buddy--stay away, or suffer the same fate." you know, kind of like what pirates or whoever did back in the day to keep people away from their pirate islands or whatever. yeah. like that.

also, (wearing all white+black lights)x dance party=awesome/i come home looking like this. (also awesome)

i went to bed far too late and i'll probably be a total zombie today, but it was totally worth it.

if you're a man, you're probably not going to want to read this

dear uterus,

i hate you. you make my body and my brain totally freak out. i'm 22, so unless i die at the age of 44, mid-life crises are not appropriate. stop prompting them.

also, i realize that the church teaches about year supply and what-not, but it's really not necessary to retain 10 pounds of water within my body. these preservation techniques, by the way, are totally thwarted by the raging desire to eat anything and everything in my path.

what i'm saying here is, your behavior is disappointing. you are on probation until further notice.

xoxo,
amy

move along people, there's nothing witty here.

this is called slacklining. it's really hard, and makes your legs wobble in ways previously unimaginable.





i promised everyone a really witty blog post, but you know what?

no.

brought to you by tristan higbee.

for better understanding about why this exists, go here.

my life should be a tv show.

last night, i was gearing up to take a nice, hot shower and jump into bed. i was pretty excited about this, because it meant that i was going to get to bed before 10 (and also i'm 70 years old). i turned on the water, waiting for the steam to rise.

no rising. whaa? i felt the water. cold. hmm. i anticipated a problem. i recalled the conversation i had recently overheard about how our hot water was potentially going to get shut off. i had disregarded it, mostly because i was on facebook at the time and nothing enters my consciousness when i'm in the zone.

my thought process: "does this really happen in real life? that's not possible. peoples' hot water only gets shut off on tv shows and movies. is this real life? am i being punked?" i considered looking for hidden cameras, but instead i called holli.

me: "hey holli...what are you doing?"
holli: "nothin, what are you doing?"
me: "i'm standing in my room in my bathrobe...so...my hot water got turned off...are you at home?"
holli: "yes. would you like to come shower at my house?"
me: "yes. see you soon."

so i walked down the street with a towel over my shoulder, carrying my shampoo. this is my life.

skirts are becoming my mortal enemy.

you know what? i'm just gonna say it.

I HATE HAVING TO SIT LIKE A LADY.

sitting like a lady is so overrated. remember that whole side-saddle horseriding thing they used to do back in the day for ladies? do you see people nowadays sitting on horses like that? no. wanna know why? BECAUSE IT'S STUPID.

you know what else? i figured out why schools never have any money. it's because they spend all of it on EXCESSIVE AIR CONDITIONING. seriously, i've never been so cold in my life. i don't even know WHY i bother shaving my legs anymore, because all that work is for naught as soon as i walk into what could be classified as arctic temperatures in the classrooms.

today i entertained myself (while still remaining arguably productive) by making a powerpoint vocabulary review. my artistic skills really know no bounds. here are a couple gems for you.

he is not naked, he is wearing spandex.
"please don't eat me!"
"raaaaaaaaar!"
ten bonus blog points if you can get the cinema reference in this picture.

i also made curry today. so i cut onions wearing ski goggles. what of it?

grace spilled quite a bit of rice.
"you destroy everything you touch!"

coming soon: slacklining and picnicking.

a clever title escapes me. all i can think about are eggo waffles.

i feel like i have a lot of things that i want to blog about, but none of them are particularly important. time for a list.

-got my praxis scores back. i'm not really one to brag and talk about my accomplishments...oh whatever. i have my own blog. i could talk about myself all day. ANYWAY. i did pretty good. take a look.

lalala i know freeeennnnch!

-today is saturday. monday is labor day. i can't even tell you how much i love not waking up at 5:30.

-recent joke i heard: "how many frenchmen does it take to defend a border? no one knows, it's never been done." haaa!

-for the first time in my byu career, i have my own room. i took some pictures.

that's my closet. and my mirror. and my toms flag.

that's my door, a wall, and me censoring the picture i got from my former art modeling days. you didn't think i would let just anyone see it, did you?

really, my room is just a room. i mostly just wanted to take a picture of my nook. i have a nook. i love my nook.


-i was recently overcome by a totally all-consuming and overwhelming craving for eggo waffles. clearly, the only solution was to go to costco and buy a 60 count box.


half-crazed devotion has never tasted so good.