Jellyfish and plaid

Comments made today:

On jellyfish:
Student: "Miss L, do jellyfish make jelly."
Me: "No."
Student: "Well, then who makes jelly?"
Me: "Smuckers?"

While teaching math:
"Johnny packed a plain shirt, a striped shirt, and a plaid shirt...."
"Wait, Miss L, what's plaid?"
"You don't know what plaid is? Farmer's wear it?"
"No."
"Mr. B wears it alot. Its those little squares on fabric..."
"It must look stupid, then."

At least we didn't lose our dignity...

Last night, hilarity definitely ensued. We went to "Name that Tune" at a cheap bar by our houses. We were determined to win. Determined, I tell you.

First, our team name. After much deliberation (and by much deliberation, I mean an offhanded comment while eating dinner) we decided on "We're much better drunk." 6 girls, yelling wildly, dancing to crazy music.

We tried very hard to get "bonus points" by doing ridiculous things on the dance floor. Things that ensued: M giving a lapdance to a skeleton, M getting a random boy to dance with her, Rooms winning the lightning round by correctly identifying Love Shack by the B-52's. D dancing a "sexy" dance with her grill on. Yes, she owns a grill. And yes, its in her purse.

When rooms went up to lightning round, they told us that someone could come up for "oral" support. D jumped up and went to go give her support. When the dj told her she had to kneel on the ground, she obliged. But then he said, you have to face her, you're her oral support, she jumped up and said, "EXCUSE me?" By this point, we were laughing so hard, we couldn't contain ourselves.

But we came in second. SO CLOSE to first. We only lost because of slutty birthday girl who did things we refused to, like: take off our bras and throw it on someone, and make out with a girl.

We may have lost "Name that Tune," and only come in second, but at least we did not lose our dignity.

"I've done nothing of value..."

The best week to get a roommate and move all of your stuff is the week that you don't have to work. Yes, I could have gone somewhere beautiful or exciting...I could have even driven to see the family. Instead, I moved.

Moving is a disasterous but wonderful thing. I have bruises up and down my legs, and scratches like I've been attacked by a rabid kitten-like creature. That's the disasterous part. The wonderful part: everything else. Our apartment is cuter, nicer, bigger, and just in general, wonderful.


The other great thing: my new social circle from her job. I met them for happy hour today, and I'm a happy girl. When I got there, and they asked me what I did all day, after saying, "I've done nothing of value all day," we had a great time. I'm smiling from the futures I can see...

I was cleaning out my car this week, after having cleaned out everything from my old apartment, and I found a sticky note. I sometimes write the funny things that the kids say on them. This one was particularly hilarious.

Me: "What did you do in football practice yesterday?"
Them: "We threw Jose in a trashcan."

Conversations

A conversation is a slippery creature. It morphs and changes, and definitely never ends up where you thought it would. A conversation, a true, deep conversation – not a surface chat about Marc Jacobs pants or the latest sports scores – can change the course of all individuals involved.

Here’s the problem with conversations – a conversation will not go exactly the way it had been planned. A conversation takes place between two people, and you can never know where a conversation could go. You could have an outline, lists, even a script of everything that you want to say, and it still doesn’t necessarily mean that you know what is going to happen.

If you are a controlling person, you probably don’t like conversations. Why? Because, no matter what you do, at some point you lose control of what is going on. You can have the greatest intentions of knowing exactly how it is going to happen and what is going to be said, but you can’t predict what the other party is going to say.

Conversations scare me. Not only am I controlling, but I hate admitting that I am wrong. And most of the time, I’m probably wrong. Or, at least the conversations worth having are the ones that I have to admit that I am wrong. So an actual conversation takes all of the courage I can muster.

But when you have a conversation that changes you for the better, its probably worth the slipperyness, the morphing, the losing of the list, the throwing out of the outline, and the fear of not knowing how it is going to end. And when it ends, even if it didn’t go as planned, it went the way it was supposed to go.

Bus Evacuations and the Water Cycle

Today we had to go practice a "bus evacuation." My two classes got on a bus in front of our school, and the bus drivers had to explain what to do in case of an emergency. well, i tried to stay on the bus and "supervise," but the bus driver was this big black lady who told them that: "If this bus rolls over and catches on fire, if you can't get out in 3 minutes, you will burn to death."

After she said that, I tried to keep a straight face and look menacing, to make sure the point got across, but i had to bite the inside of my lip because I was laughing. Really? You say that to 11 year olds?

Then she said, "if you trip on the way out, all of the friends behind you, they're dead. You've killed them." Then, I had to walk off of the bus. And laugh hysterically.

Also, when I was checking rough drafts about the water cycle, Salvador's water droplet falling from the cloud said, "And then i saw a lot of chinese people." I said, "Salvador, this is kind of racist. Why are you seeing just Chinese people?" "Miss L, duh. We're at the Great Wall of China." "Well, Salvador, you didn't write that on your paper." "Oh, I didn't. I guess i forgot. I just wrote about the chinese people." Oh the hilarity.