The Ginger People - Stem Ginger Gingerbread

The Ginger People - Stem Ginger Gingerbread

Hey, does anyone have a kickass ginger cookie recipe? Preferably one that used THREE types of ginger?

Pets

Wow. I just read this article on slate about questionable veterinary practices. Looks like with everything else, vets are also trying to get the most income on unnecessary tests as well!

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2176521/pagenum/all/#page_start

 

What really bugs me are the claims on yearly vaccinations. I never even thought of it that way, and I totally have to agree. If you build up a life-long immunity with ONE, why the hell are we required to spend all that money over and over again on yearly shots?!

 

Pfft. Forget that, I'm not going to feel bad for not taking my cats in for shots. Never again, not unless there is something seriously wrong.

And the lights are on...

I finally get the "taco" thing. Taco Hell is doing their stupid promotion thing. Jesus. They can keep my taco. That shit is toxic!

In other news. Very fucking tired.

Have been having a horrible time sleeping this week and I don't know why. I sleep really lightly, and keep tossing and turning. Today, it's finally caught up to me, and I was so tired at times, that my eyes were unfocused and I was dizzy. NOT GOOD.

I picked up some Advil Nighttime and just took a couple. Hopefully that will help keep me knocked out.

And now? Bed. And hopefully sleepy sleep.

Loud and Annoying

The teachers lounge is filled in the morning with yelling, gossiping hens. ANNOYING. Jesus, don't you people ever SHUT UP?

Bionic

I'm diggin the Bionic Woman show. Diggin' the cute CIA agent boy more they got to play in tonight's ep.

Not a fantastic start...

Talk about staying one step ahead here, and flying by the seat of your pants.

 

Today, I did the briefest of brief cruises about Expository writing. I know what it is (duh), but teaching it is another matter. I was re-reading my info over it last night.

 

So I was already feeling shakey about that, and then I could NOT sleep. I kept flailing in my sleep. Then, around 2am, I got a horrific case of cramps. Damn it all. I managed to swallow down some advil and then I just squirmed in pain for about an hour until I was finally able to fall asleep.

 

Unsure of material, crampy, sleepless and cranky. What a fantastic way to attempt to teach. I was SO CLOSE to throwing in the towel and calling in sick. Kept having to give myself a pep talk this morning: fake it till you make it.

 

And then, the mother of one of my students emailed questioning her daughter's score on the essay. Good student, really, but she handed it in LATE. Per my C.T.'s already long established procedures, late material is only worth 1/2 the possible points. So, thankfully, my C.T. was able to quickly and effectively counter the parent on that, but it still sucks. These parents would be better off telling their kids to do their work ON TIME. Believe me, when you get to college, your professors are going to laugh in your face.

Lovely

I have wine.

This is a good. Check that. Great.

Tired, so tired

People, I can't tell you how tired I am.

I am eyes nearly rolling in my head tired. I could not fall into a restful sleep last night. Certainly didn't help my teaching today. It seemed like *everyone* was sluggish today. My afternoon C.T. and I were looking at eachother with a dumb expression on our face, clutching the desks. The kids were comatose, too. Yeesh.

I got most of my shit in order for tomorrow. Time to tuck off to bed. *yawn*

One more thing:

I AM SICK ALREADY OF CHRISTMAS! There is Christmas shit overtaking Target already. It's not even Halloween for Chrissake! It's like everyone completely fucking forgets Thanksgiving, too.

That said, I made the mistake of looking at the Harrods website (yes, that Harrods, Harrods of London). OH, I weeep! I'm not a major fan, but I do love the tins they package cookies in. I have a cookie tin up on a shelf in my room that is just cute. Has a drawing of a postman pulling letters from the big red letterbox. I was thinking of possibly buying a cute tin of something that pictures something super-Britishy for Christmas. Or a Harrods tree ornament?  Exchange rates and shipping rates, however, may bar that from happening. Did I hear this right - the Canadian dollar is worth MORE than the U.S. now? *disgusted* THANK YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE BUSH. Yah, bastard wants another $46 mil for his illegal fucking war while the rest of us slave away for peanuts?! FUCK YOU!

Sad and Pathetic

It's terribly pathetic that mid-way through my
semester of STUDENT TEACHING (as in, not fully
fledged) I am already dreading and procrastinating at
grading these damn paragraphs of my students.

I know, I know. I don't mark them down over what I
haven't taught them. But the writing is ATROCIOUS. I
think I could run out of ink in my red pen.

No. Not going to run out of ink. Will resist. Will
only mark up one or two examples of things they did
wrong on their respective paragraphs, then tell them
to be on the lookout.

If they're ever to write well, they need to WRITE AND
WRITE AND WRITE MORE.

Cathol

can go boink itself!

Does anyone have any idea how hard it is for me to not
run screaming in my placement every time I hear some
crazy ass "Right to Life" march thing at school?

Why not "RIGHT TO MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS AND
YOUR OWN GODDAMNED BODY"?

Bitch, please. If you really respected ALL life, then
how about ensuring that those babies get cared for
after they're born - including the little darkies most
of you whitebread city folk don't give a rat's ass
about. How about ending a senseless and falsely run
war for profit in the middle east? How 'bout? How 'bout?

So tired

Too damn tired to do a fucking thing.

How Does it Feel?

Hey, Diamondbacks,

YOU SUCK TOO! HA HA HA HA HAHAHHAAAAA

Schadenfreude

Let's face it: it's gotta suck to be a Diamondbacks "fan" right now.

 

HA HA HA HA HA HA! SUCK IT!

 

 

London Calling

London (or Britain in general), it would appear, is intruding upon my thoughts again. The weather is gray and rainy. Nigella Lawson is on the food network and they showed some London streets. Dear Lord, Nigella has such unhealthy eating habits, though. (Oh, and Ina Garten's show did fish n' chips.) Bridget Jones's Diary is simultaneously on A&E. And Kilroy is hosting a carnival about cities: London, specifically.

Oh my God, I'm just having a Brit craving right now. :( I miss it! I miss you, Mum!

I'm hoping something will miraculously happen wherein I can travel within the next six months. Our profit sharing check from work comes out the first week of December. I'll probably have to use most of that to recover from the financial depredations of not having worked full-time for four months, though. Tax filing time will happen early February and hopefully I'll get something from that.

The most oddball thing is that I qualified as an entrant in this local radio station thing. It's the XLC treasure chest. Basically, the entrants all get a key. Whoever has the key that opens the treasure chest, wins it. There are some other prizes as well, like gift cards and such. But I think the chest has $5K. That, in my opinion, would be swell. I THINK I AM THE MOST DESERVING PERSON!

It's "Habanero"

One mutha bright sweater

Steve Carell

I totally need to see Dan in Real Life. Heh.

Dasvedanya

Shiiiiiit. I just saw "Eastern Promises", the Russian
mob movie with Viggo Mortensen.

THAT was some nasty violence. Up close and real personal.

Don't wanna be here

I am in no way, shape or form prepared to be at school today. I don't want to deal with anywith. It's Homecoming week here, too. Really, is now a good time for sports? NO.

 

I still want to watch the game on Saturday. But more for the sick fascination of watching something die, slowly and painfully. I don't know that I want to be in Wrigley surrounded by thousands of angry drunks. WELL THEY SHOULD BE ANGRY. Seriously, if someone ran on to the field and bitchslapped Soriano, I would cheer. What a waste.

 

I feel like my sports heart has been ripped out.

Reason Eleventy Million Why I Hate Catholicism

Voice post to come soon.

The strain is unbearable...

I WANT TO WATCH THE GAME NOW. I AM FREAKING OUT.

Of course

Of course Fox sports is picking us to lose. But, much like everything else, Fox sucks.

 

I am going to spontaneously combust - this game is driving me nuts already and it hasn't even been played.

 

Zambrano, you need to be a man tonight. Dempster: you drive me and everyone else in Chicago nuts, but you need to prove all the doubters wrong and make everyone play whiffle ball when you go to close.

DeRosa Blog Update

Yeah, for those of you who are psycho like me: HE UPDATED AND HE USED HIS SEXY PIC!!!

Cubs

Seriously, I think I'm going to burst with this madness. Game. Tomorrow. OMMFG. *flails*

Bad Day for a Quiz

For the students, really, but I don't feel so hot either! So, I administered my first quiz today. It was on the first half of our parts of the sentence schtick. It's a darn good thing my C.T. told me to make it worth a lot less. If not, these kids would all be failing.

I guess now I get to tell these kids that this is what happens when you don't take notes like you're supposed to. They were all "lah de dah" half the time. And they were like "you're not going to have the diagram models up on the wall????!!!!" Uh, no. The point is for you to KNOW this stuff, Einsteins.

I don't know how many times I've told them, you will NEVER EVER EVER infinity find your subject in a prepositional phrase. So, I put in what I thought was a "gimmee" question on the quiz. "True or False: You can find a subject in a prepositional phrase. " The second class all go it right, but my first class? It's like I never even taught them. Half the time they're not awake anyway.

A lot of the diagrams were atrocious, too. I'm going to have to inundate them with diagramming homework for the next four days. I know diagramming is the ass-end of exciting, but come on. When did I ever show you diagram models with crooked lines? YES, it DOES matter if your line for an adjective or adverb is straight or if you make it "L" shaped because the L shape means something completely different! Like: indirect object!

My C.T. was astounded when I showed her some of the quizzes. I told her I felt so bad and was wondering was it me? She told me to go over the stuff again, assign more diagramming, but that she thought I gave them every opportunity to ask questions and they were the ones not taking notes. Hell, I practically begged them to ask me questions.

Today, I told them that if I wrote it up on the board, then they'd better be taking notes. They grudgingly took out their notebooks. (Don't even get me started on this one kid who habitually doesn't bring a freaking pencil or pen to class. Seriously, I'm going to start keeping tabs on how often he does this in the next week. If it gets insane, I will forbid him from asking someone else for a pen, and then I'll tell him he's got a choice. He will either serve a detention for habitually coming to class unprepared, or he can take a detention and either get a pen from someone or from his locker.) Tomorrow, when they get their quizzes back, especially the first class, I am going to tell them again: 1) TAKE NOTES and 2)ASK QUESTIONS.