Guess What...

I got a call today from the Assistant Principal at Colonial High School offering me the job as the new drama teacher. So, I guess I'm a teacher now. When I woke up this morning, I was a college grad looking for a job. Now I'm employed and am responsible for all of the students in the drama program, as well as the theater, the dressing rooms, the power tools (oh! the power tools!)...everything. I will have more keys on my key ring than I've ever had before. Students...my students...will hear me coming my the jingle of my keys.

I bounced (literally) around the office for a good half hour today, down to the machine room, up to the verifiers cave, back to the seasonal/on-call cube. I didn't sit down for an hour. I couldn't. When I finally got my sizable butt back into my chair and the euphoria began to wear off, I got this horrible sense of fear. A man just called to tell me that they've decided to give me more responsibility than I've ever had in my life. And it's just me. I'm flying solo.

I've never directed a play before. Or designed a set. Or taught a class.

This year will be a year of firsts.

The Lamentable Reality of Fall in Orlando

Autumn captivates me. I love the leaves, how they turn from green to red and orange and yellow. I love the crisp air, and the first time it's cold enough to see your breath. I love scarves, and long sleeved T-shirts (I want to wear my Virginia Tech shirt without sweating!), and jeans. I love apples and all of the dishes that are made from them, apple pie, apple sauce, apple butter. I love football games with fans bundled up in sweatshirts, hats and scarves of matching colors (especially when those colors are garnet and gold and they're doing the tomahawk chop).

But I live in Orlando, in the state where old people go to escape the cold. I live where the leaves stay green through November, and the apples are trucked in from other states, and scarves are a fashion accessory and nothing more, and the wrong football team wins the games. I live where you can go swimming on Christmas if you really wanted to.

It hit 90 degrees on the Fall Equinox, and I was filled with jealousy because somewhere the leaves are falling. Just not here.

My Grammar Obsession

You may not know this about me, but I really like getting my grammar and spelling correct. I have even been known to send properly spelled and punctuated text messages to my friends who invariably respond with something like, "k cu l8tr". Digispeak or whatever you want to call it is the bane of my existence.

Knowing this, it will probably not surprise you that I proofread my previous post at least three times before finally publishing, twice after (making changes each time) and editing yet again today upon discovery of "their" in place of the correct "they're". It's a little sad really.

I had a professor who forbade us to use "like" in class. He handed out these bumper stickers that said, "This is a like free zone." Every time someone used 'verbal ellipses' as he called them, he'd just look at them and say, "try that again." It made us think about what we wanted to say before we started speaking, and resulted in better answers all around. Every so often I go on a quest to eliminate 'verbal ellipses' from my own speech, and since my language has become saturated with 'likes', 'ums', and 'you knows', I'm considering embarking on one such quest in the near future. Care to join me? It's amazing how intelligent one sounds when the pointless noise goes away.

An Entry from my Journal

I haven't written on the blog much lately. Life has been pretty boring, and I've just now started adjusting to the whole it's-September-and-you're-not-in-school thing. In reaction to the dawn of this reality, I've retreated into myself a bit while I become acclimated to post-student life. As a result, I've been writing a bit more in my paper and pen journal, the one that doesn't get e-mailed to all of Crusade by my parents. As it happens, I've been a delinquent in that as well since hearing that I didn't get the job at University High School. So, after two weeks of collecting dust on my bedside table, I decided yesterday to pick up my Moleskine and [gasp] write something. And as it turns out, I found what I wrote rather amusing. I have chosen, in the interest of total disclosure (yeah, right), to share this with the world at large and risk it being sent to half of the country by my parents.

Here goes (minus the spelling errors):

"8 September 2007

"Saturday 12:45AM

"I haven't put pen to paper in what feels like ages. There are many reasons for this, but I will only highlight the major ones.

"1. There's not much to write about. I go to work, I come home, I read, I sleep. That's (sadly) about it. Aside from a few high points (and by 'a few' I mean two), there isn't anything to relate.
High point 1: Bard - I got a cat for my birthday. He's adorable, but embraces his catly nature and can be quite aloof.
Irony: As I wrote that previous point he abandoned his aloofness and walked through the door.
High point 2: Interview - I had an interview at Colonial High School for the vacant drama teacher position. The result: another week or so of painful anticipation for a phone call. Here we go again. I resolve to stand up for myself this time.

"2. The only thing I've really thought about in the last month is Harry Potter, and I dare not write about that in depth lest the writing result in a fully formed essay. Moratorium on scholarly writing for the time being. Besides, Dad has finally given in and read the books, so I have someone with whom I can share my HP thoughts.

"3. Any news in the last three weeks (barring the previously outlined high points) has been boring at best and depressing at worst. Basically, I don't want to think about it.
Outlier: Bard the Cat is ill with an upper respiratory infection and as a result has been snotty and lethargic for three days. He has also taken to sneezing in my face (I will consider it a miracle if I get through this experience without a kitty cold) and giving me mean looks for the two hours following the administration of his antibiotic via squirty thing to the mouth. But, who could blame him? He has apparently gotten over this for the night since he is sitting on my bedroom floor staring fixedly at my sponge-painted wall.

"And speaking of sponge-painted walls, my room is due for a complete redesign. Away with the high school memorabilia! A box is sufficient for your tacky glory! In with the intelligent and trendy decor of a recent college grad and twenty-something (cue Jamie Cullum music). If only I knew a hip twenty-something to redesign my room."

Well, there it is, one of the few times the silliness in my personality actually comes out in my journal.

And now for something completely different...
You may or may not have noticed that I fell horribly short of my self imposed quota for blog posts in August. I have no excuse other than plain laziness...and it's hot in August; who can think when they're sweating? But summer is winding down, and with it must go the laziness.

I was also wondering if anyone caught the literary allusion in one of the post titles from last month. Think 20th Century American poets. And...go!

The Bard

I don't really make a big deal out of my birthday. And I don't expect much from it. I'm not really big on presents or cards or whatever else, but this year, this year my birthday present rocked. His name is Bard, and he's 5 months old.

He has also woken me up at 6 AM for the last 3 days, but somehow I don't really mind that much because he's cute and he just falls asleep on my pillow anyway. He likes sleeping on the hard wood floor beneath the dining room table, and he does that clawing thing that Buttons did when he was happy. He purrs a lot. I don't think he knows his name yet, but sometimes he'll look at me when I say it. And for some reason, he likes being on his back, even when you hold him. He's actually been sick for the last two days.

We went to the animal shelter on Saturday afternoon, not expecting to take a cat home with us (before they release the animal they have it spayed or neutered, not spayed and neutered as we said several times throughout the day). But we walked into the kennel (is it called a kennel for cats?) and there he was, the first cat we picked up. Mom liked him straight away. He was friendly, and he let us hold him the entire time without really trying to get away. Keith and I wandered around a bit, looking at the other older cats and some of the younger, but Bard eventually won out. And I'm glad he did, because he's cute, even if he does sleep all the time.