An apology

Dear readers:

This Oprah essay contest thing seems to have gotten me into some hot water. After participating as a grader in this contest wherein students were asked to write about the book "Night," I criticized writers from a certain portion of the US (a certain half of it technically). I feel these few posts have unfairly tarnished my otherwise spotless reputation in the blogosphere, especially to these new readers who found me via a desperate google search to find out when the winner of the Oprah essay contest would be revealed. The posts they read were, unfortunately, written after hours and hours of reading essays, not all of which were terrible, and so I was feeling particularly snarky. My fear is that they will go back to their high school counterparts and talk about the awful teacher from Chicago they found on the internet who hates children, especially those from the South. That's simply not true. And if you were one of the unfortunate Southern writers who submitted a crappy essay that I had to read, that's okay. If you were in my class, which, let's face it, you probably would be, I'd love you anyway. I love all my students, even the ones that are shitty writers. In fact, I submit that shitty writers are more rewarding to have in class than grade-grubbing geniuses who think they know everything there is to know about the craft of writing.

As for my opinion on the South as a whole, it's not really my speed, but I've heard great things about it. Hell, as a kid I vacationed in the South every damn year of my life. *I'm a Yankee to the bone, but I'm sure the South is lovely in some ways as well.

Sincerely,
Tara


* and so begin the google hits about boning members of the NY Yankess

The Daily Grind

"Kids today. . ."

I try not to start any sentence with these two words. I think it automatically makes you sound old. I don't make any attempt to listen their shit music or dabble in any aspects of their "culture" though; I just try to remember that we were all teenagers once, and that they aren't that much different than I was (except for the meth; no one did meth when I was a kid). There is one crucial thing that separates teens of the 2000s from the teens of the mid-to-late 90s- the dancing. We didn't dance in high school; we were too busy being grungy and depressed about Kurt Cobain being dead. "Kids these days," on the other hand, love to get their groove on- or should I say, they love to get their grind on.

The school where I work established a "dance policy" that outlined the kind of dancing students were not allowed to engage in at school dances. The policy simply states that they are to refrain from "dancing that is sexually explicit." When the policy was originally presented to the students, it actually specifically said they were to refrain from "grinding" and mimicking sexual activity, particularly "front-to-back grinding" (gross). The policy was announced over one year ago, yet the kids will not let it go. Apparently, at the dances, the chaperones stand in the balcony above the gym and they shine a flashlight at the kids they identify as dancing in an unacceptable way. Then, the students are warned, and if they just can't stop themselves from "grinding" in a sexually explicit 'front-to-back" posture, they get busted again and thrown out of that dance, and banned from the next school dance to boot. But now that we are over a year into this new policy, with it being applied at many a dance, you'd think they'd be accustomed to the policy. Maybe they'd do some research to find out how to dance in a more acceptable way. That's not the case. Instead, they whine about it every chance they get. Although I am very liberal personally, I tend to err on the side of caution/conservatism when it comes to children. So I am all for this policy, even if the way it is enforced is a little bit much. I used to teach 8th grade, and I was shocked at the way those children danced. It's shocking. It's like a Nelly video breaks out every time there is a dance, complete with their sweaty bodies bumping and grinding in front of their 1st period teacher and parent volunteer chaperones.

When discussing this with my students recently, I learned that some parents are opposed to the dance policy. And so that their little darlings don't miss out on those precious teenage memories of dancing in a sexually explicit way in a stinky school gym, they get HOTEL ROOMS for them so that they can have their own little private grinding party. Excuse me, but I have a question. I'm not a parent, and I really don't claim to know anything about being a parent. But I'm pretty sure that if I were a parent, I would do everything in my power to make sure that my son or daughter was never in a room with a person of the opposite sex where there was a bed and dim lighting. Sure, they might find themselves in that situation at some point, but I'm not making the fucking reservation. What is this fucking world coming to when parents are more concerned with their children getting their way than with their children getting pregnant? Why are parents more interested in being friends with their children than parents to their children? These are, likely, the same parents that buy liquor for their children and allow them to drink at home (during a co-ed sleep over) because, hey, at least they aren't driving!

Finally, I told my students that it is, in fact, possible to dance without grinding. They say I'm full of it. So I told them I'd bring in two people to demonstrate dancing without grinding. Anyone want to come to my classroom and dance in a wholesome way in front of my sophomores? Southie, maybe you and Dana want to demonstrate for me? I already told them that I don't believe in dancing (unless I'm drunk at a gay bar), so they know I won't do it.

Well, I'm off. I borrowed the DVD of "Into the Woods" from a girl in my book club. It's my favorite musical. What an exciting Friday night. I wonder if you can grind to "Into the Woods."

For a good time blog....

I have about 5,000 papers to grade tonight, so I can't write much. However, I do have time to say that for a good laugh, you need only to go to Dr. Kenneth Noisewater's most recent post. I don't watch American Idol, but I still laughed my arse off. Enjoy!

Southie says my posts are too long. So here's one for you, South.

Above you will see a picture of the logo for the Torino Olympics. I hate the Olympics. BOO OLYMPICS!!

I sat on the couch and graded all night. My roommate is never home even when he's not working, so I get plenty of quiet time to do my grading. I did have the games on for background noise, but only because I knew I'd have no trouble ignoring it so I could concentrate on my student work. I especially hate ice dancing. We watched a little of it the other night, and the most entertaining part was the clumsiness of the sport. People were falling lefty righty, and somehow the rumba and the samba just don't look nearly as electric on the ice. The judges kept complaining about how certain couples were lacking sexual energy. Who knew sexual energy was a requirement for an Olympic event? That's some crazy shit. And how the hell does a woman manage to give the image of feeling sexual energy with a gay man? I don't want to stereotype, but let's be honest here- male figure skaters aren't known for their mojo. It just doesn't seem fair to expect that of them. They're ice skaters, not actors.

I'm having one of those days where I am coming down from the high of having time with my BF. He's back to work now so I'm sad again, making this short post even easier to accomplish.

Windchilly

You'd think that you'd be be able to avoid the screaming child in the restaurant when you are going out to eat in the city at 8:30. Don't get me wrong; I like kids. They're fine. I especially adore my nieces, and sometimes they are even too much for me. But there's no child I hate more than the screaming one in the restaurant. My friend from college came in last night (who, by the way, is pregnant), and we went to dinner at a casual place in the city. But it was almost 9:00 at night. Who the hell brings a 3-year-old to a restaurant at 9:00 at night? And this kid, whom I call Damien, was clearly tired- maybe overtired. He was screaming "Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya YAAAAAA" over and over and over and over again. I understand that children do that. And I also understand that if you are sitting at home, your best bet might be ignore Damien's attention-seeking ploy. But for christ's sake, you are not at home; you are in a restaurant. There are other people in the room who do not find Damien charming, nor do they have the patience to wait for Damien to figure out that mommy isn't giving in this time. Mom and her friends got a big kick out of it. Then they finally looked in my direction and saw the disgusted look I was shooting at Damien. Then they looked around the restaurant and saw that everyone in the restaurant had the same disgusted look on their face. Mom was finally convinced it was time for Damien to take a walk. When he returned, their food had arrived so she stuffed his face with grilled cheese (I was so jealous) and he finally shut the hell up.

So it is -2 degrees today, which means the windchill factor is probably about -14. Do you have "windchill factor" in your city? Or is this the kind of thing weathermen make up in Chicago to account for our hideous winds? It means that, although it is -2, which feels pretty damn cold anyway, it actually feels like -14. Chicago is known as the Windy City not for the actual winds. Nevertheless, it is damned windy here. If you don't know, Chicago is called the Windy City because of the way it lobbied to get the 1893 World's Fair- bragging about the city like "blowhards" (imagine the Google hits I'm going to get this for having this word on my page) in order to win the bid. It's also called the Second City, because some New York newspaper columnist called us that, not because we actually think of ourselves as second to any other city. I know I don't.

This -2 degrees thing would normally mean I'd be on the couch all day and watch my backlog of Seinfeld episodes and catching up on grading. But my pregnant friend is here to shop for maternity clothes because the selection in St. Louis isn't very impressive. There is a fancy maternity store on Damen Ave. that sells maternity premium denim and all kinds of cute stuff. It almost makes me think I could tolerate being pregnant. Almost, but not quite. Then we'll head to Michigan Ave. to go to the Gap, which has a really huge selection of maternity clothes. We'll be only a few blocks from the lake, so we'll get a good sense of just how cold a -14 degree windchill is.

The credit cards are safely in the freezer, and they are not coming with me today. Actually, they'd probably stay frozen if I did bring them with me. I vow not to purchase anything today. I will report back later. The only thing I may buy is a parking spot. We should take the El, but walking to and fro the El in -14 degree windchill weather does not sound like something I want to do today.

You can't very well dust for vomit

I heard an interesting story on NPR this morning about this. Good stuff. I listen to only NPR. Most people click around to other stations here and there, but I see no reason for that. I don't have much free time during the week, so even though a newspaper would be my favorite source of news, the fact is I am out of my house for 14 hours each day, leaving very little time to curl up with the Trib and a cup of coffee. So I can get great in- depth coverage of horrifying things like this on my ride to and from work. Plus, I love the slightly less horrifying stuff like this that I can get on the weekends. I'm even a member.

I watched part of Spinal Tap today. I ordered it and Airplane last week from Amazon.com, who shipped the two DVDs in an enormous box that, when it arrived, made me wonder if I had ordered an actual airplane rather than the film Airplane. It was an impulse buy; I never buy movies, but I made an exception for these two classics. There are so many great moments in Spinal Tap. Every time I watch it, I notice something funny that I didn't notice before (like the matching cold cores that Nigel and David have or the bulge in Derek Smalls' pants).

You can probably tell by this shit post that I am feeling uninspired. I'm not entirely sure what the reason is for the lack of inspiration, but it might have to do with one or all of the following things:

1. I can't talk to my best friend anymore (long story that I cannot publish).
2. I haven't seen my BF since Sunday and I won't see him until this coming Sunday.
3. One of my friends from St. Louis is coming in to visit this weekend, and I am stressed about how much money I'll have to spend while she's here.
4. I have my period,
5. and I have a weigh-in tomorrow at WW, and I am sure #4 is going to impact my numbers.
6. So I am going to have to starve myself all day tomorrow.
7. I left my awesome portable coffee thermos on my desk at work,
8. so I am going to have to use my other "portable" mug that does not close all the way, which means I will be splashing coffee all over myself as I leave the house tomorrow morning at 5:30 carrying my gym bag, my book bag, my lunch bag and my not-so-handy travel mug.
9. My editors are, once again, late at getting the issue out.

Okay. I better go before this list makes it into the double digits.

I'm not making this up

I once had a teacher that scratched her coochie in front of our class. I am not making this up. She would stand in front of our 6th grade class, put her leg up on the desk (also not made up) and scratch her cha-cha with her forefinger and her middle finger. She would do this while addressing the class. For example she might say something like, "Students, take out your spelling book." While she was giving this set of directions, she'd have her fingers all up in her coochie, just scratching away. She'd even do this if she was wearing a skirt. In her defense, her skirts were really long ones, so it's not like we could see her na-na; we were just very aware of its presence because the woman could not keep her hands off of it. She'd do it while talking to parents at open house, or while standing in the hall having a chat with a colleague. Can you imagine? I don't even like to use words like "fox" or "batch" because they rhyme with.. you know..., and this woman had her forefinger and middle finger all up in it. My sister was in her class the year before me, so I knew it was coming; likewise, as you can imagine this woman developed quite a reputation. Still, I couldn't help but be shocked when I first saw her do it.

This story is 100% true. If my sister weren't so traumatized by this woman, she would corroborate my account of our 6th grade teacher.

Who doesn't like a good hamburger?

I put in my 2nd day at Oprah yesterday. I used a sick day for it, and so did two other teachers at my school. It was much better with them there because we could share the horrible essays and get a good laugh out of it together. There is still a huge number of essays left to be evaluated. They hope to be done by Monday, but I just don't see how they could be.

There were really no perks outside of the free food and parking. A few girls answered some Oprah trivia questions and won an Oprah "Make the Most of Your Life" hat. Another girl won a new robe and another a pair of Oprah's favorite jammies. I was glad I didn't know any of the answers. There are so many women obsessed with Oprah, and I just don't want to be one of those people. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy a hearty dose of Ms. Winfrey every so often, but I wouldn't call myself a devoted fan. I'd call myself a curious bystander who wouldn't pass up an opportunity to be on her show on the off chance I might win something. I kept waiting for someone to say, "Okay everybody, look under your seat! Everybody wins a new ____________!"

Alas, there were no surprises under my seat. There were some surprises in those essays though. As I am a high school teacher, you might assume that I know a lot about teenagers. As it turns out, I know a lot about rich upper middle class white and Asian teenagers from a Western suburb about 40 miles West of Chicago. I apparently know nothing at all about anyone that doesn't fit that profile. Here's what I learned about teenagers while grading:

1. They are not, on the whole, very strong writers.
2. When they are strong writers, it's usually because they are good at writing an organized and coherent essay, not necessarily because they are eloquent or have a voice (which is hard to do, I realize).
3. They think that the holocaust was "a terrible thing" (Really? I hadn't thought of that).
4. But they also think high school bullies and cliques are equally as terrible.
5. The ones from the South, Michigan and Indiana are probably the weakest writers in the country (which is a gross generalization, I realize, but I couldn't help but notice a pattern).
6. NONE of them know how to correctly use a semi-colon.

Yes, there were quite a few really, really bad essays. One of my colleagues had several really amazing ones though, whereas I have maybe 2 good ones. One girl my colleague gave a 50 to was from Rwanda. Her parents where taken away and killed when she was a child. She now lives in a posh suburb of Chicago (don't ask me how she went from Rwanda to a suburb whose average home price is upwards of $1,000,000), goes to probably one of the best high schools in the country, and speaks at other high schools about the awful things she went through. *I nearly cried when I read it; it was that good. The bad ones were more fun to read. One kid actually started his essay by asking "Who doesn't like a good hamburger?" I don't know what came after that because I stopped reading for fear I might lose valuable IQ points just having read the work of a person that starts an essay about the relevance of the holocaust by asking a question about a popular American sandwich. Another kid used two words that none of my colleagues could identify. I think they were completely made up. All of the essays had the student application attached to it. The application included their home address and phone number and school phone and address. On more than one occasion I considered calling the number on the application:

Tara: Hi. Is this Ashley?
Ashley: Yes.
T: **Ashley from Washington High School in Mississippi?
A: Yes, that's me.
T: Ashley, I just got done reading the essay you submitted to the Oprah essay contest.
A: REALLY? Did I win? Am I going to get to meet Oprah? Am I coming to Chicago?
T: Oh no, Ashley. I am calling to ask you for that 2 minutes of my life back.
A: I'm sorry? I don't understand. So I'm not the winner?
T: No, Ashley, not unless Ms. Winfrey decides to give out an award for WORST ESSAY EVER, in which case you would be the winner- hands down.
A: Oh... um...
T: I would like to pass on some advice that I got straight from Ms. Oprah Winfrey herself:
A: Okay. What is it?
T: Give up now, Ashley. Just give up.

I don't mean to be harsh, but when you spend 8 hours reading essays that claim that the Holocaust is comparable to the Columbine school shootings, even to 9/11 (which were obviously tragic but I don't think any intelligent human being could seriously say that they were as devastating as the Holocaust), you just get a little bitter.

Well, the BF and I are celebrating Valentine's Day tonight. It's just an excuse to go to dinner. We are going to an Italian BYOB in Bucktown. I love a good BYOB.

PS: I think I can hear my neighbors getting it on right now. I feel kind of dirty.

* This is the correct way to use a semi-colon.
** Student's information has been changed to protect her anonymity.

Full disclosure time

I gotta be honest here.

The only reason I am doing this Oprah essay judging thing is so that I have something to blog about. That and the money. But more for the material it would garner for this blog.

The question the students had to answer was "How is Elie Weisel's "Night" relevant today." I wish I had logged all the hilarious things I read in these essays. I know a lot of teenagers, and sometimes I am shocked at how much they dramatize the most minor things. But some of these teenagers took it to a whole new level. One girl compared the holocaust to when a good friend of hers "dumped her" for a new boyfriend. Another girl said that Hispanic Americans are the new Jews. Some kids got all God Squad on me and started quoting the Bible and making connections between abortion and the holocaust. Only a few kids made the connection between Rwanda and Sudan, which I was kind of hoping to see more of. The ones that did this were all honest enough to at least cite their sources; unfortunately, all of them used fucking Google or Wikipedia as a primary source of information. Awful.

It's a good thing nearly all of them were hands-down shitty essays; we weren't given much instruction in how to evaluate them. As I have been brainwashed by a fancy suburban school district with high standards, I expect a rubric for everything. It's gotten so bad that when I go to the grocery store I search the shelves for a rubric for the produce; I simply cannot identify quality without a table containing the words "Exceeds Expectations, "Meet Expecations" and "Fails to Meet Expectations" at the top of each column. When I walked in, the girl gave me a stack of papers and told me to give each a score of 1-10 (using decimals if I wish) for 5 categories- Creativity, Originality, Relevance to the Question, Structure and something else that escapes my mind right now. She said I might not see a single essay that comes anywhere near the total of 50 so I should not stress if I found myself giving low scores. Not only did she not give me a rubric, but she would not even tell me what these kids were competing for. I mean, let's face it, if it's a college scholarship my standards are going to be different than if it's two tickets to the Oprah Show. If it's a large sum of money to be put toward a college education, I'm looking for mind blowing writing; if it's Oprah tickets, I'm looking for a girl who is going to dress real nice and put on a good hands-trembling-over-her-face crying display when Oprah walks onto the stage. If nothing else, I'd like to see a good old fashioned sob story for a pair of Oprah tickets. Still, all she said was "the winner and a friend will get to come to the show when Elie Weisel is on." Oh boy. That's really exciting. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure Mr. Weisel is an amazing interview, but do they seriously expect me to believe that they are paying all these teachers $23/hour to read 500,000 essays just so we can determine the lucky winner of two fucking Oprah tickets? Please. I've seen this woman give away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of highly sought-after material goods to an audience full of screaming upper middle class white women; there's no way she's being this stingy with two tickets and a chance to sit in the same room as Elie Weisel.

Anyway, I did not give a score that exceeded 35. The kid that got the 35 simply composed a nice, inoffensive 5 paragraph essay with a three-pronged thesis, which started to look like Pulitzer Prize winning stuff by the time I flew through 80 essays. It was easy grading though because I could tell right away when I did not need to waste time reading an entire essay. Automatic disqualifiers included:

1. The use of an exclamation point anywhere within the text of the essay (which is always an automatic DQ for me)
2. An introduction that included:
a. "According to dictionary.com Holocaust is defined as..."
b. The holocaust was a devastating time in history.
c. Some people might think racism is over, but it's still a huge issue today.
d. Pain. Suffering. Torture. That's what Elie Weisel and his family lived through.
3. The use of the fonts Comic Sans, Curlz MT or Apple Chancery (again, an automatic DQ)

I'll go back tomorrow to do some more grading. I did it for 3 hours tonight, and I was so over the thrill of someday getting a paycheck signed by Oprah Winfrey. Sadly, it looks as if the "essay grading" that I feared was actually a trip to some exotic place if I did not attend is, in fact, just essay grading. But like I said, it's $23/hour and blog worthy. And in these desperate times much like the ones Mr. Weisel faced, that's all we can hope for (that's a direct quote from a kid from South Carolina).

Oprah's newest intern

Oprah's newest bookclub choice is "Night" by Elie Weisel. From what I gather, she is sponsoring an essay contest wherein high school students are asked to write about the book. I'm not sure of the details because, frankly, I don't give a crap. I share this story because I have been selected to be a judge for the contest. "Selected" might not be the appropriate word because it sounds like they are desperate for judges. I received an email from a friend of a friend of a friend of a.... you get the idea.. who knows someone that works for Harpo. They were searching for teachers who have read the book (which I did in college yet I have no recollection of it at all except that it has something to do with the holocaust) who can help out with judging. I sent in an email fully expecting to get no response. Well, I got a call tonight from the Oprah show saying I have been "chosen" to be a part of this "exciting opportunity!" They also said I should find any certified teacher I know and beg her to join me. Apparently, I am one of about 100,000 "lucky winners." Yipee! In spite of the glaring lack of prestige associated with being 1 of 100,000 of anything, I have elected to participate. I am doing this for two reasons:

1. It pays $26/hour
2. If I say no, I just know I'll find out later that the "essay judging" was a coverup for some exciting Oprah sized surprise involving free iPods, spa packages and pashmina scarves.

My choice to do this virtually guarantees that this "essay judging" will in fact be just that- essay judging. Thus, I am ruining the 99,999 other judges' chances of getting any freebies out of this simply because I'm sick of watching Oprah give stuff away to what seems like everyone in the world but me.

I am going to try to put in a few hours tomorrow and a few hours Friday. There will be free parking in the downtown hotel where the judging takes place, free food and, most importantly, the cash. Why would I say no? A girl I work with (who is doing this with me) pointed out that there is a legal and ethical reason why we should not take a sick day to partake in this event- i.e. you are not supposed to take a "sick day" from work to spend the day earning money. The way I see it, it won't be the first time I've done something illegal or unethical to earn cash.

I better get to bed... I feel a sudden cough coming on. And a head cold. Cough cough.... sniffle sniffle....

24 recap

... 24 hours later

I'll buy that Jack Bauer can single-handedly save the world. 4 times.
I'll buy that he's in love with the hideous Audrey Raines.
I'll buy that the American public of the 24 world would elect someone like that.
I'll buy that Chole and Edgar are just that smart.
I'll even buy that Jack's stupid daughter could get into and out of trouble as often as she does.

But I will not buy that the 15-year-old sex slave from Russia would
A. Be able to hide a gun under her sweater
B. Not have had the idea to kill the old pervert until the exact day that he is needed to save America
C. Have been able to shoot him dead in only one try.

Other than that, great episode.

Grammy hammy

Is there a football game on tonight? I keep seeing people around town with big submarine sandwiches and football-shaped cakes. And there's a guy in my building walking around with a black jersey with gold lettering on it.

Anyway, I read a good article by Greg Kot in The Chicago Tribune today about how the Grammy awards are way out of touch. It points out that Kanye West is one of the few artists who has met both critical and fan acclaim. I had a student burn me a copy of Late Registration. It's pretty good stuff. Anyway, it lists some albums that were more successful with critics but get no recognition from the deeply unhip Grammys, and I was happy to see that I owned a few of them, most importantly Sufjan Stevens' "Illinoise" and My Morning Jacket's "Z". Both are pretty amazing. If you can get your hands on them, you should. It also inspired me to download, I mean, purchase a few other items off the list.

Well, I'm going to a party tonight where we will watch commercials. In preparation, I haven't eaten anything of substance all day. My BF and I went to Walker Bros in Glenview for pancakes. More accurately, I went with and watched my BF eat a double order of blueberry pancakes (skinny bitch) while I ate a fruit cup and an english muffin with nothing but jelly on it. And drank a shitload of coffee. Mmm mmmm good. I'm not entirely sure if that was enough food for me, but if the fact that I nearly black out every time I stand up is any indication, I'd say it isn't.

Songs: What a Wonderful Man and Into the Woods (not the musical), My Morning Jacket

Conspiracy theory debunked

So I am doing Weight Watchers. I was doing it all online until one of the girls in my book club said that she was also doing Weight Watchers. I asked her if she'd like to start going to meetings with me because I've heard that people who go to the meetings have more success than those that try to do it independently. We agreed to attend meetings on Thursday nights together. The first thing you do when you get there is weigh in. This meeting stuff to me feels very much like AA, so the weighing in part is the AA equivalent of doing a breathalizer test upon arrival. Anyway, I knew this would happen so I ate very little that day in preparation for the dreaded weigh-in. I stepped on the scale and it was 8 lbs higher than the two scales I've been using since I started doing this on Jan 1. I looked at the bloated (pun intended) figure on the scale and I informed the girl that this figure could not possiblly be correct. And I just know she was thinking "Sure fat girl, that's what they all say." But I was certain I had exposed some sort of Weight Watchers conspiracy to use inaccurate scale to keep members going to the meetings just a little bit longer. I also started calculating the weight of my clothes, watch and glasses, which I concluded could be not anywhere near 8 lbs. I wore a lightweight shirt, my summer weight denim (which are more like denim sweatpants now that I've lost some weight) and no underwear (because you know how heavy underwear can be) so I knew it was time to start uncovering the conspiracy. The investigation started the next day when I went to the nurse's office to use her scale; I was certain that my suspicions would be confirmed. The only thing that was confirmed was that I am 8 lbs worse off than I thought. Brian and Dana walked me down to the nurse's office and seemed to take great pleasure at the horror on my face when I emerged from the privacy of the scale room. I was pretty depressed for the first day or so, but I'm getting over it. So I have 8 more lbs to lose than I thought. What the hell difference does it make? None really.
It's the BFs birthday this weekend. We went to Wildfire last night with a couple of his friends to celebrate, and we will hang out tonight too. Wildfire is an anomoly. It's part of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group, which is a group of quality restaurants primarily located in the Chicagoland area, but with a few locations in places like Vegas and Arizona. The restaurants in the chain are very popular. There are Asian places, American, Italian... you name it. Wildfire though is far and away the best of the group, and pretty much the only one I go to unless I'm with a group of people who suggest going to one. I live in Chicago, which has better restaurants than just about anywhere in the country so there's really no need to go to chains. I ordered a chicken sandwich. It was small and I got full more quickly than ever, which is good. I even requested they hold the fries and ordered broccoli instead. Now that I have to weigh in every week at weight watchers, I'm more motivated than ever to lose every week. I want them to scold me for losing weight too quickly, which is what happens every time I log my weight online (apparently 2.5 lbs/week is too high. Please!).
I promise not to write anymore weight loss posts. That is, of course, until I get to my goal weight, which won't be a post as much as a picture of me in that black dress in my closet that is the motivation for this endeavor.

show: What Not To Wear- some 35-year-old that dresses like a total whore (the usual)

It's Reigning Men

I am the advisor of the student newspaper at the high school where I work. I really love this part of my job. I'm like one of those PE teachers who became a teacher only so he could be a coach. I pretty much decided to be a teacher because I knew I'd be a journalism teacher and a newspaper advisor. I will admit that it's probably about as stressful as any advisor position in the school, but it's probably 10 times more rewarding. Every month I get to see how incredible my editors are. I basically hand pick my staff. I recruit them from my journalism classes (by "recruit" I mean "beg them to join"). So when they finally become editors, they are well-trained. We had an editor from the Chicago Tribune do a consultation with us, and he said the writing my students did was some of the best he'd seen out of high school students. That's because, even though I tend to be very liberal in every other way, I am quite conservative with my writers and editors (mainly becuase it's my job on the line if they fuck up). I don't let them write stupid ranting editorials about how this one show on MTV sucks or how teachers suck. They write well-informed editorials and balanced news stories on controversial topics . Don't get me wrong; I let them have fun with it, too. One story this month had the editors ranking the best toilets and water fountains in the school. Another one was all about the male "beauty pageant" we have every year with a headline that read * "It's Reigning Men." Technically they do have some First Amendment rights, but they are responsible with this right. It's great. I wish all of you could see it because this most recent issue is really incredible. Anyway, I'm really proud of them. I tell them that all the time, but I don't think I can express my gratitude to the right extent. I know I bitch a lot about work, but I can't think of anything I'd rather do than teach high school students. I think what I love is that I, and every other high school teacher in America, know something few people outside of my profession know: high school kids are pretty incredible. Sure they have shitty taste in music. And they watch way too much MTV. But I'm one of the lucky people in the world that can walk into a room full of these people that adults usually find repulsive and enigmatic and actually get them to do something amazing. That's what I call job satisfaction.

Artist/Album: Neutral Milk Hotel/In the Aeroplane over the Sea

* Ok fine, I wrote that headline, but the point is, they get to have fun.