Teacher's institution day

We've had institute days for the past 1.5 days. Institute days are always brutal. There is a committee at school that exists for the sole purpose of designing institute day agendas that are engaging and relevant. I know some of the people on that committe, and they are some of the most dynamic people in the school, but they fail miserably at making institute days enjoyable every single time. It doesn't help that we have, like, 12 institute days each year. The gimmick this time was to offer free massages during the breaks. I wonder if those massages came with a happy ending? I'm not a big fan of the massage. I've only had one massage. I never would have paid for that sort of thing; it was "free" with the inititation fee at my gym. I think I insulted the massage therapist. At one point I was actually twiddling my thumbs under the table because I was bored with this creepy Eastern European man's oily hands being all over my oily body, and I kept picking up my head to try to get a glimpse of the clock in the dark room with the "soothing" music (Enya). It was one hour long and all I could think about was the many other ways I'd rather spend that precious one hour. Here's what I came up with:
1. Sex
2. Shopping
3. Bikini Wax
4. Watching my BF get dressed for work
5. Sex
6. Grading papers (not kidding)
7. Reading
8. Teacher's institute day
9. 24
10. Sex
When he was done, I hopped up, got dressed and got the fuck out of there. I think he was expecting some kind of compliment, maybe a few mini-orgasms, but I just rushed out and said thanks.

I didn't have to try to dodge the massage therapists at school today because, in leiu of today's institute, I went to a conference at Northern Illinois University called "New Ideas in Communications and English: Pop Culture and New Media." I didn't sign up for the conference, but someone asked me to go when one of the original attendees had to drop out last minute. Southie probably should have gone, but I happened to be in the room when my colleague told my boss she had to cancel, so they asked me to go. I went to one session on film and literature and another on "The Television Western Returns: Deadwood and Genre Revisionism." I don't watch Deadwood, but I have a new respect for it after the (adorable) professor talked about it for an hour. I still don't know if I can watch it; as vulgar as I am, I don't generally like violence, cursing and sex in movies or television. I do like crime shows (24 and recently The Shield), but I think that has more to do with my cop fetish than the genre itself. The last session I went to was called "What's Old is New Again: Using Historical Popular Culture Materials in the Classroom." It was easily the 3rd most boring hour of my life (the first two most boring hours being the ones during the institute day yesterday when a Harvard professor gave a presentation on ADHD consisting of a PowerPoint presentation with brain scan pictures of what an ADHD kid's brain looks like in certain situations compared to what a non-ADHD kid's brain looks like, but with no information on how to make the former look more like the latter). This particular session featured a librarian (sounds exciting already doesn't it?) who read a speech word-for-word off a 5 page document about all the "exciting" primary sources in the library. Then she proceeded to make a pitch to try to get us to be "Friends of the Library" so we can have access to all these exciting resources whenever we want.

After checking my site meter, I noticed I had a few hits from someone inside of harpo.com. I wonder if it was Oprah herself (Esbee, you might get that spa robe after all!). I hope she's not mad at me (you know, like The South is) and in the process of putting a stop on my paycheck.

Good news: I'm finally getting a new mattress! A friend of mine works at The Fairmont. When I mentioned to her that I need a new mattress, she said that the hotel places orders for mattresses all the time, and they offer them at a discount to their employees and their friends and family. She said she sleeps on the mattress every night, and it's super nice. So I got a full mattress and box spring for about $400, and it retails at over $1,000! My mom and dad paid for it as my birthday gift (my birthday isn't until April 30, but this was too good a deal to pass up), and they got a king mattress and box spring of their own as well.

More teacher's institute days next week. I bet you can't wait to hear all about it.