Monthly Archives: February 2012

goodness, manfolk

This was a terrible plan

OMG RUN HARRY POTTER

Boyfriend is leaving for a job in London tomorrow 😦  He’ll be gone for about ten days, and we’ve been meaning to see The Woman in Black, so we decided to cram it in before he left.

What a terrible idea.

I read the book recently, and it’s a good old-fashioned ghost story.  The movie is… similar, but more of a Hollywood-style, evil-thing-jumps-out-of-a-dark-corner, heart-stopping, crap-your-pants type of scary (in that order).  The short version is: I was not prepared for the level of scary this movie had in store for me, and now Boyfriend is LEAVING ME ALL ALONE HOW COULD HE.

Having said that, if they were going to make it that scary, it had to end the way it did, with some good fortune (if you can call it that) for this poor man.  But right after that, the very last shot, a close-up of the woman, and then she looks at you and AAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!  So fucking scary!

I was curled up against boyfriend, cutting of circulation to his left arm the whole movie.  A couple of times, when the woman got really mad, I had to close my eyes.  Once, I turned to Boyfriend and declared, “Ok, all done now, I want to go home.”  He laughed and shushed me; I was only half kidding.

It’s not that I’m so easily frightened; it’s the combination of the empirical scariness of the movie, combined with how totally unprepared I apparently was, and what an unwelcome surprise my lack of preparedness was.  Here’s the breakdown I made.

Advertisement
Standard
goodness

Hush now

I just discovered the art of Jeremy Hush, though I feel like I’ve seen his art before…

This is a classy version of the fantasy crap you see up at a Rennaissance Faire.  I loves it.  Wish I could go to the gallery show he’s doing in San Francisco soon.  Wish he had a book out…

Standard
humor, martial arts, work

Bad birdie

lol noobs

I teach a range of kids from 2.5-18 years old.  Starting at 3.5, the kids take class without their parents, and it becomes my job to enforce the rules (don’t pick your nose, don’t hit each other, I already said don’t pick your nose, fingers out of your mouth, what did I just say?, that’s right, don’t pick your nose, etc.).  I can’t be everywhere at once, though, and the kids will occasionally run smack into each other, fall down hard, or intentionally misbehave while they think I’m not looking.  This is equal parts doom and hilarity; the invincibility they feel while my back is turned is instantly crushed into a fine dust when they discover that the mirror that extends across the entire room is nothing but a shiny taddle-tale.  Then they get busted and I laugh (on the inside) as the bravery drains out of their faces, and a murmured, “Yes, ma’am” is all that remains of their conquest.  Better luck next time, kid.

At the end of class, the kids line up and we all clap for them.  I talk about what they learned, what they’re working on, and so forth while the parents smile and nod and gaze lovingly at their kids (or pantomime standing up straight for their kid who has lost interest in my monologue).  About 90% of the kids I teach are great, so most of the time, it’s pretty dull.  But every now and then, when the kids think I’m not looking…

I have a hapa student (let’s call him Sam) who has a tough time standing still for more than a few seconds, and takes corrections pretty hard (he pouts whenever I don’t praise him).  But overall he’s a happy kid who has a good time in class.  A few weeks ago the kids were all lined up in front of the parents at the end of a normal class.  Just as my hand came to rest on the door handle, I glanced at the kids to make sure they were lined up straight, and what do I see but Sam, way at the end of the line, flipping off every parent in the lobby with both hands and a huge smile on his face.

Flipping the bird to a bunch of adults in front of your classmates is a pretty ballsy thing to do at any age, but it’s not something I expect a four-year-old to know how to do.  I froze, with my hand on the door, and said, “Sam,” in a sharp, level voice.  His hands dove behind his back, and his smile disappeared, replaced by a mask of fear as I walked away from the door and asked him to step out of line for a chat.  Once we were far enough away from the other kids, I crouched down and asked, “What were you doing over there, Sam?”

Sam: [eyes to the ground]
me:  Sam, eyes up here.  What were you doing?
Sam: [lip trembling] I don’t know…

And then he collapsed onto my shoulder and started crying.  I rubbed  his back a little, then pulled him away and asked him if he knew that what he had done was bad.  He nodded (of course he knew), so I asked, “Can you say sorry please?” to which he immediately responded, “Sowwy pwease!”  Fuuuuuck, so cute.

I put him back in line, said my piece to the parents, dismissed the kids, and watched Sam collapse onto his mom.  She hadn’t seen him do anything, but knew better than to accuse me of mistreating her son in some way.  She had no idea where he picked up this behavior, and was just the right amount of bemused and displeased.  She is a good mom, and a nice lady with a good sense of humor (thank god).

Standard
goodness, life, manfolk, school

Good shit

Tonight, I arrived at home to discover that everyone in my apartment has had an excellent 24 hours.

a work in progress

Teacher Roommate met the owner of Mendocino Farms (our new favorite place), and he gave her a free sandwich (she’s painting a jelly fish right now– see picture at right).  Diminutive Roommate exchanged the Xbox her coworkers bought her for her birthday for a Wii (she’s hooking it up right now!).  Boyfriend just discovered that he landed a job that will take him to London for a week.  And of course, I applied to graduate school yesterday; I even got a phone call from someone in the program congratulating me on completing (and submitting) my application in full.

And Calico just got her dinner.  So everyone is having a stellar day.

Standard
goodness, life, school

That nagging feeling

I found this artist, Jenny Holzer, recently.  This plaque of hers really struck me.

I’ve woken up so many times feeling this way, like something’s wrong but I can’t put my finger on it, so I can’t fix it, so I can’t escape it.  This must be the “silent desperation” Thoreau wrote about.  I’ve pinned it on not applying to grad school all this time, so we’ll see if that changes.

Yesterday, I sent in my application to grad school.  I didn’t tell anyone until later that night, when it occurred to me that it was probably worth mentioning to Boyfriend, who was more excited than I was.  It’s strange; I’ve finally applied to grad school, and I feel nothing.  I guess it’s just been a long time coming.  I’ll be (way) more excited if I’m accepted.

Standard
goodness

Run, Ichabod, RUN!

holy shit where's his head?!

It’s not often my mind is BLOWN by something I’m working on Office Job.  Today was an especially awesome exception.

I hope I’ve made it perfectly clear how much I love old-timey spooky stuff.  I was editing a list of addresses for our mailer today when I found the following address mixed into the bunch:

### Ichabod Lane

WTF ICHABOD LANE?!  So I looked it up and SLEEPY HOLLOW EXISTS, PEOPLE (in New York).  Let your imaginations run wild.

I loved this story as a kid.  And poor Ichabod!  We all watched the disney cartoon version, but I wanted something darker out of this story, something sinister and inescapable.  The Headless Horseman has some pretty neat origins in old folktales, and is the best kind of bad guy: inexplicable, invulnerable, inconceivable.  There’s no explaining how he can exist, there’s no killing him, and there’s no understanding him.  He just is and always will be, a specter watching every bridge, an untraceable, unstoppable, bloodthirsty ghost.

Like I said, he’s the best.  I also completely love Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow.  I may have to watch it when I get home tonight.

Initiate countdown for when I visit Sleepy Hollow, NY!

Standard
goodness, nerd

Knick-knacks

I set up a shelf from Ikea (which didn’t come with any way to attach it to the wall, so Home Depot to the rescue), and finally set out all my little chotchkies and what’s-its.

I like to think Kakashi is reading aloud to the Beastlies, and they are just horrified.  A bunch of this stuff (see bottom right portion) is odd little stuff my dad threw in my stocking this past Xmas.  What a weirdo.

Let’s identify all these little items, starting at the far left.

-Calendar which, when turned toward the operator, changes number up to 31, then starts over
-Clay representation of my family made in May of 1990 (kindergarten)
-Clay tiger with a Kanji character on its side, given to me by a British photographer who took some black and white photos of me a few times
-Plastic figurine of Hatake Kakashi from Naruto.  What a dreamboat.
-Beastlies!  All unique.
-Bronze statuette of a bathing woman; this is a miniature reproduction of a bronze statue that I really like, and a gift from my parental units.
-Jade ball within a jade ball x3; a gift from Mom’s college professor friend from China (to find me a boyfriend, if I recall), who always encouraged my writing and poetry.
-Clay bird whistle from the Apuseni Mountains in Romania.  There’s a little hole on the neck that changes the tone.
-Fox Xmas ornament, but I’ve never hung it on a tree after the first year Diminutive Roommate gave it to me.
Bottom shelf: all random items from my Xmas stocking this past year, except for the cheetah pen next to the pink ball (which lights up when struck), which was a gift from Teacher Roommate all the way from Barcelona, Spain.  She also brought back some earrings for me and Diminutive Roommate.

Standard