You'll See (Reprise)

Wait, let's try that video post again...

You'll See

Want to experience an 8-hour field trip in under 3 minutes?

We're Okay

I survived the week! Hurrah!

Thankfully, I have a relatively free weekend. I say thankfully because I developed a cold Thursday that's now in full swing. Happily, I had the energy to get through the field trips and be the responsible adult and such. Midsummer was a good, solid production. The Wall was actually the funniest I've ever seen. 12 students met me down there, and we all enjoyed the show quite a bit. They even met some of the actors afterwards and fawned over them as high schoolers do.

Rent was interesting to see as a college production. The singing was great, but most of the actors had no idea what to do with their bodies. Mimi's "Out Tonight" was just awkward, as were most of the love duets. Angel, sadly, was stiff and aloof and the costume they picked for her was hideously slutty. That was sad.

The kids loved it, though, and we got all 61 kids and 9 chaperons home safe and sound. At midnight. Once the last one was picked up by his folks, I drove back to the condo in MT, took a large dose of Nyquil and crawled into bed for eleven hours.

Then I woke up, ate the other half of the sandwich I got for dinner in Boulder (by the time I got the kids off the bus and pointed in the right direction, I only had 15 minutes to get dinner myself), then fell asleep again for another three hours.

I'm home now. I left the beast and all of my stuff in MT. I just came home to do laundry and play the piano in church tomorrow. My plan is for an early bedtime tonight, then I'll head back up the mountain after church. Hopefully with enough sleep I can kick this cold and be ready for school again on Monday.

Girl Meets Boy

After a delicious weekend of Waterhouse fun, I flew back to Denver Monday morning. Thanks to my parents, I tried out a charter flight service. You know what they say about luxuries once tasted? Well, it's going to be hard to go back to DIA after that. Flying to Junction through DIA takes between 4-5 hours on average when you factor in the drive there, the parking, the security, the waiting, and the flight. Driving to Junction takes 4.5 hours. This charter-flight-thing took just over 2 hours, including the drive to and from the airport.

Fantastic, I tell you.

Anyway. I get back to Denver on Monday and run to the grocery store, then get home and give affection to the cat, workout, shower, try out my new makeup (I went makeup shopping with Rachel since she wanted to look her age ((in a good way)) for her birthday with grown-up makeup and such. I gave into temptation and got some new cosmetic treats for myself), and headed out the door for a date. As should come as no surprise to those of you who know me, the date was a source for quite a lot of introspection.

The fellow was nice and (unlike the last internet-founded date) a talker. The conversation went fine, but there was no... spark, I guess? I was responsive out of politeness rather than that genuine pull of a great dialogue. Inbetween my responses my inner monologue was running along these lines:

- I think I'm out of this guy's league. In a good way.

- What a crazy thing! I spent the days leading up to the date in a panic that he wouldn't be interested, that he would take one look at me, at my body, and would lose all interest, and now that I'm here, I'm thinking I'm out of his league.

- How horrible of me. Beggars can't be choosers, right?

- But I am. I am choosy. I'm choosy because I can't turn off the direct circut that links dating to marriage.

- I trying to, believe me. I'm trying so hard to figure out how to date just for the sake of dating. I want to figure out how to undo all those years of Young Women's brainwashing.

- I don't mind meeting new people, but sometimes it's exhausting. During those preliminary verbal exchanges I think about all of the things that person should know about me and all of the stuff I should know about them and there's just so much. I want relationships to come out naturally, to meander to and through a friendship. But dating (and internet dating in particular) isn't a pleasant walkabout. It feels more like a marathon of check-points and next-step-goals.

- Does that mean I have to date more to figure out how to do it right?

- I like having a reason to try new makeup and dress up. I like how I stopped being nervous the second I walked into the coffee shop. I like the confidence I discovered I had.

- I don't like dating, though. I like my friends. I like the conversations I have with my friends.

- I also like a certain classiness. For good or for bad, I am elitist and I like being around people who know how to and who do play the rules of the social game.

- So here's this perfectly nice guy sitting in front of me and he's smart and his profile online was very attractive and yet...

I promise I was conversant above these thoughts. Heck, I was even flirty. Not flirty in a Grandma Cook-approved way, granted, but in a brainy-girl way. Which totally still counts as flirty.

I think what I want is to go back to college. That is, I want to go back to the days when I was meeting and working and playing with a lot of new people all of the time. That, for whatever reason, was not exhausting but rather exhilarating. Some of my closest friends came from that time as well as a heck of a lot of people I loved knowing and being around. Those relationship-opportunities have gone from great big lakes to what feels like this.

I saw this TED talk on my blogroll tonight:


Maybe that's the issue. Maybe the fact that I don't even have time to watch a 13-minute TED talk about balancing your work and personal life because I work all the freakin' time is the issue. (Because I haven't actually watched it yet. I've just flagged it for future viewing. Do you know what that is?


That's right, kids.)

I don't know how to make this all better yet. But then there was that other thing I flagged on my blogroll today:



And really, I think that's all I need to know.

Another Openin' Another Show

One down, three to go.

My Advanced Drama class performed their One Acts tonight for their parents and friends. It went just fine.

Tomorrow they perform for other classes during our period.

Then Thursday is the Midsummer field trip and Friday is Rent.

Also, teaching and musical practice.

It was a very good weekend, but it was not long enough.

Bed now, details later. Good night!

Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying

This week is taking FOR. EV. ER.

I'm experiencing a medium-sized case of burn out. I'm tired to going to school every day, of teaching stuff and grading stuff every day, of dealing with teenagers and their constant questions (not good "Hey, there's thinking going on!" questions. I mean the "Are we doing anything today?" insulting-type questions) and their tears (Oh my lands, the tears! Valentine's Day hit the freshmen girls hard this year. The sobbing, the weeping, the "Today's (sniff) not such a great day for me (sniff, sniff)." and the tug-your-hair-over-your-eyes "I'm not doing okay? Because I don't like it? When people lie? To your face?" check-ins this week!) and having to walk to my classroom in the west building. Then to the theater in the east building. Then to the west building. Then back to the east building. Then drive up the mountain and down the mountain and up the mountain and down the mountain and wake up at 5:00 AM when I really, really need to sleep until 6....

Yeah. I'm a little grumpy this week.

The sudden change in weather might be part of it. We went from so-cold-we-cancel-school-because-the-buses-won't-start to the mid-50's-no-jacket-needed in a pretty short time span. Everyone's feeling spring fever and itching to go frolicking, yet it's still just February.

There's also the usual show craziness. The musical's chugging along, but we're hitting the stage where it's not new-stuff-fun and it's not show-time!-fun. It's more chore-like, and it's harder to keep my enthusiasm up high enough to drag along the students.

Plus, the Advanced Drama class is doing their first show next week. I told them at the beginning of the term that I didn't want to do a play the first quarter because of the musical and speech and other craziness. They, of course, begged and pleaded. We compromised with a student-directed one acts festival. And really, it's gone fine considering. There's the usual personality conflicts, of course, when you ask students to direct other students, especially when the director-students don't really know how to do that without bossing everyone around (which produces, what else? More tears!).

They asked me today, "Are you worried about our shows next week?"

"Not really," I said honestly (I'm busy, yes, but not worried).

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not the one who'll be up there on the stage in front of people I know."

"Harsh!"

"Maybe, but it's true. It's your show and how you do has very little bearing on me personally."

"Because you're God?"

"That's right."

Their performances are next week. As are two after-school field trips. Because I've apparently turned into a masochist.

All of which is to say that I get to go home this weekend and play with my family. And I really, really need to do that right now. Which I think is part of why this week is taking so freakin' long.

Two more days. Heaven help me, two more days.

Doin' What Comes Nat'rally

The bell toned an incoming announcement during 2nd period today. Carol's distinctive Texan drawl came over the speaker, saying something that sounded a lot like:

"Teachers, please excuse the interruption. We need you to keep your students in the building. It's not safe for them to go in the parking lot right now. There's a gang in the parking lot. Do not let your students go to their cars."

My students looked at me for clarification, but I was just as baffled as they were. Whatever was going on, the administration was apparently dealing with it, and we had Greek myths to discuss. I continued the lesson.

Bell tone. Carol again, speaking with a lot more precision: "Teachers, please excuse the interruption. It seems my accent is causing some confusion. We don't have a gang in the parking lot. We have game in the parking lot. There's a coyote in the parking lot."

Which, oddly, makes a lot more sense.

Secrets of the House

Last year Rachel and I kept our relationship a secret from the cast. I introduced her as "a choreographer from Denver," and although the kids figured out we were good friends, they never suspected more than that. Since I was new and still proving myself, I figured she'd get a lot more respect from them if they knew her as "the choreographer from Denver" rather than "our teacher's sister." And they did.

This year, though, they started to put the pieces together. One by one kids have figured out that we're actually related, and when they ask I don't lie about it.

Today Rachel came up to choreograph, and she brought Ben and Jack with her. Jesse was practicing with the pit orchestra for the first time, Ben worked on homework, Rachel taught "Suppertime" to the Snoopies and the featured dancers, and I took care of Jack and supervised the rest of the cast while they made Valentines for the Valentine's Day scenes in the show. It's also Parent-Teacher conferences this week, so I would step out of the room periodically to confer with parents (we're all about multi-tasking here). I took Jack with me into the hall since he was a little freaked out by all the big kids fawning over him and singing, and I introduced him to one of the parents as my nephew.

When I got back into the room, some of the kids looked a little confused.

"So... he's your nephew?"

"Yup."

"So... are you related to Mr. Mason?"

"No, Ms. Mason is my sister."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Like, literally?"

"Like, she's my little sister."

"By blood?"

"As in we have the same parents, we grew up together, we shared a bedroom until I was in sixth grade, and we were both in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown when I was a senior in high school and she was a freshman and she was Linus' blanket and it was really kind of creepy having a lady as the blanket in the dance."

(slight pause, then)

"Aww! That's awesome!"

And, in fact, it is.

Chain Gang

I changed my mind - I LOVE my new tire chains. (Thanks, Dad! You rock!) They're this kind, if you're wondering. They're also super-easy to install. I put 'em on in under five minutes this afternoon to get up the hill to the condo.

Of course, that could also be thanks to my pioneer woman awesomeness. Especially since I've now put on chains twice in the last 24 hours without breaking a nail.

Stand back and admire my awesomeness.

Speaking of awesomeness, Rachel came up with a fantastic solution to a pickle today. The weather and roads were indeed crappy (we had a delayed start, but it totally should have been a snow day. The roads were just as snow-packed and icy when I left school as they were when I went in), so we decided it wasn't safe for her to drive up for rehearsal. However, we really needed to keep moving on the dances since we only have a limited number of days when she can teach them.

The solution? Tele-choreography!

Rachel filmed a series of videos in her basement to teach the chorus part of "Suppertime" and emailed them to me. I downloaded them to a jump drive and hooked it up to the projector in the auditorium. So rehearsal went something like this:



With the show's two dance captains counting off and demonstrating moves, the chorus learned their part. I uploaded the videos to the show's Facebook page so the cast could review as needed. And, just in case they are tempted to make fun of Rachel's "gospel choir crazy" moves, I also posted the video I shot of their last run-through. Besides, I wanted Rachel to see what they had done. Because they're cute.

Go, Tech Sisters, Go! (Digital High Five)

Cool Hand Luke

Everyone's holding their breath for a snow day tomorrow. The amount of snow forecasted drops each time I check, but they're still saying 100% at 3-5 inches.

The snow from this weekend made quite the spectacle today. Here, take a look:



Yes, that is my classroom window. I love the view, although you can see why the walk between buildings is not always so fun.

So after a commute like what you see (plus darkness), many teachers were rooting for a snow day tomorrow. I told them at lunch that I contributed my part by moving up here for the week. It seems every time I take precautions like this, we get a snow day. I'm magical!

I did not, however, tell them about the cat in my office.

See, since I moved up here for the week, that means Nash came with me. I left early to swing by the condo and drop her off, but I didn't factor in enough time for the lousy commute. I tried to get to the condo. I made four attempts to get up the hill, but slid back down every time. I thought about calling in late to put on chains or walk up the hill, but decided to just deal with it after school instead.

I drove to school and headed straight for my backstage office. I picked that one since it's the least used - my office in the other building (the one near my classroom) is shared with the janitors. I put Nash inside with a a makeshift litterbox, an open can of cat food, and a cup of water. She meowed a lot, then crawled under the desk.

And that's where I found her after rehearsal. She hadn't moved at all during the day.

I shouldn't be surprised by her stamina in the face of an unfamiliar place. When I first got her and brought her home to my apartment in Salt Lake, she disappeared. I looked everywhere for her, then gave up and went to bed, figuring she'd come out during the night.

Nada.

It was three days later (during which I had concluded that my new cat had somehow escaped and was gone forever) that I finally figured out the one place I hadn't looked. And sure enough, when I reached behind the dishwasher in the kitchen, I felt a furry ball tucked in the farthest corner under the wires and pipes.

It took the combined efforts of Emily, Ben, and me to dismantle the dishwasher and pull her out. I sealed it up afterwards and Natasha and I became fast friends.

Three days. No food, no water. This cat is a pro at Hide 'n' Seek.

So this afternoon I tried the hill twice more but still spun my wheels. I parked at the base and pulled out my chains. They're new ones. I've put on chains before, but they were on my old car. Yay! First time using chains on my new car! Yay for going 13 months without needing chains!

This happened:


(The other looked the same, but I needed it to take the picture.)

But also this:


Yes, they're still on. I didn't want to deal with them in the morning if I do have to wend my way to school through the 6-10 inches of snow (and I do like them, Dad. He sprang for the fancier self-tightening ones for me and they are easier to use, despite what the photo evidence suggests).

Ah! But the adventure didn't end there!

In going through the routine of powering up the condo, I discovered a broken pipe. Seems the temperatures that shut down school last week also defeated my leaving the furnace and water heater and 100 watt light bulbs on.

With a few phone calls to my mom and several phone calls to plumbers (because of course I'm finding this after rehearsal, which means after business hours), the conclusion was that the pipe is part of the water meter and therefore needs to be replaced by the city water people. Who are not so great about returning phone calls.

Happily, the pipe just drips now. I propped a bucket under it and found I could still use the faucets inside. I filled up a few containers and then shut it off again for the night. At least I can shower! Going three days without showering and then conducting parent-teacher conferences is not something I look forward to.

So! All kinds of adventures today! Despite all of that, though, I'm still really glad to be here:

Hymn for a Sunday Evening

Snow Day #3!

Despite the hours I put in this week to get the two hymns that had been selected for me to play in my inaugural accompanist Relief Society class today, I was not at all disappointed to get the call this morning that church was canceled due to the weather.

What I did today instead:

- I made Cinnamon Raisin Bread
- I made Big Soft Ginger Cookies
- I made Hot Apple Cider
∴ I made my house smell delicious
- I worked out for an hour (while watching Psych - Yay Netflix for iPad!)
- I practiced the hymns I'm supposed to play next week in church
- I did laundry
- I trudged a path through the calf-deep snow in the parking lot to check the mail
- I talked to my parents (fingers crossed for the potential new partner!)
- I discussed with Jason the play I saw Friday night which he had seen in DC a few months earlier
- I started reading this book
- I decided I wanted a house with snowy woods and a lamppost and
- I wondered what the chances were of school being canceled again this week (90% chance of snow on Tuesday. Can't they just call it off now so I don't have to decide whether to move up to MT for the week?)

Please excuse me now; I'm off to have a slice of bread with some hot chocolate.

Slide a Little Closer

We did have school today, albeit late. And, oh, it was nice to start at 9:00!

Aside from the obligatory student complaints about having to come for "just one day of school," things went back to normal quickly. Classes, lunch, classes, rehearsal.

The drive home, though, was not so fun. It started snowing during the last class of the day. They had predicted "light flurries," but it was a bit more than that.

I slid quite a bit coming up one of the steeper hills. This was after passing three cars that had completely slid off the road in the muddy slush that was left uncleared by the two snow plows I passed in the opposite lane. I almost followed them off the road but instead got stuck on the shoulder. Every time I tried to go forward, I slid more to the right; that is, more towards the cliff's edge.

Eventually, between the bursts of traffic climbing past the wreck behind me, I managed to reverse myself to a place of traction and merge back onto the main road. The highway past that hill was snow-packed and a bit icy, but not as slippery-slushy as the other.

It took an extra 30 minutes, but I am home again with no damage to me or my car. Hurrah!

And, even better,
Tomorrow = Teacher Inservice Day = No Rehearsal = Carpool = John drives through the snowy roads instead of me.

Hurrah encore!

Call Back in the Morning

6:30 PM - another phone call from my district

"Although we have been trying with heaters and [other instruments], we were unsuccessful in starting the buses today. We will continue to work against the cold to resume school tomorrow, but it will be on a delayed start schedule. The high school will start at 9:00. We will send out another automated message if we are unable to start the buses tomorrow morning."

To summarize my week:
Monday - Normal school day
Tuesday - Snow day
Wednesday - Snow day
Thursday - Delayed by 90 minutes (if not canceled)
Friday - Teacher Inservice Day (no school for students)

P.S. I've read 4 books since yesterday morning. Is there such a thing as book bulimia?

Home Again

Partway through my gloriously lazy day (I spent the morning reading. Reading! I've missed you!) I got a phone call from my district's automated system.

School's canceled tomorrow, too.

Well!

I decided I wanted to spend my second day off at home (elliptical and laundry being at the top of my to-do list tomorrow), so I packed up the condo and the cat and we drove home as the sun set. It's bitterly cold outside, as you may have heard, but the roads weren't bad at all.

And now I'm watching The Daily Show while my cat sleeps in front of the fireplace.

And tomorrow? Tomorrow I get to wake up naturally. When I've had enough sleep. In my own bed.

Sweet.

Cold Feets

Tomorrow's high here in Mountain Town?

-9.

Happily, it was that plus the 4-10 inches of snow in the forecast that led our superintendent to declare tomorrow a snow day shortly after we all skedaddled out of school today.

Hooray!

Boy, do I need it. I've still tired from the speech meets and all. In fact, I had moved up to Mountain Town for the week last night in part because of the forecast and in part because I get to sleep in an extra hour up here.

So Natasha and I are going to spend a delightful day off tomorrow. Plans include enjoying selections from my Netflix queue (like The Secret of Kells), reading The Weird Sisters, working on Making Waves, and doing some serious price-comparison itineraries for trip possibilities for this summer (round trip to New Zealand for $1160! That's less than to Madrid! Oh, the possibilities!).

As you can see, it will be a busy day. So long as the power holds, that is.

By the way, the speech meet went pretty well. We got 25 awards all together. 12 students made it into the finalists rounds (i.e. top 6). One girl won Best of Event for Creative Storytelling, and the rest got mostly 2nd or 4th in various events. Not as good as last year, but certainly not bad either.

People Will Say We're In Love

When I boarded the bus this morning, my students greeted me by raising their fists and shouting, "Hail Waterhouse!"

I've decided I'm okay with that.

And They're Off

Hello from the 2011 State Festival Speech Meet!

I'm in the ballot room at the moment. Today my job is to stuff ballots, i.e. sort the completed judging sheets into the folders for each school.


On one hand, it's a dull job as there's not much to do until the ballots come in. Even then there won't be much to do, since they've got three of us in here.

On the other hand, it puts me in a prime place to see how my kids are doing each round. So that's something.

I have 25 kids here today. Not bad, considering. It was a bit of a rush getting out of school. Ruth had always left after 2nd period and let the kids get lunch down here. I opted this year to wait until after the kids finished lunch at school to come down. Two reasons:
1) The kids who are on free lunch would actualy get to eat withouut worrying about paying for food out and
2) I would only have to get a teacher to cover one class of mine instead of 2.

Still, it was a rush to get down here in time. I'll have to reconsider that plan next year.

In any case, we're here until about 9pm tomorrow night. And while I'm here, I'm going to tell you a little more about Speech.

There are actually several different types of events students can compete in. Each state tends to pick its own, so there is some variation. In Colorado, there's even further division according to school size - we're under 1440 (we're actually at about 450 this year), so that means we compete in the Festival group of schools. Here's a break-down of the Festival Speech Events:

Interpretation of Literature (Drama, Humor, or Poetry)
In this event, students "interpret" a piece of literature orally. They must read from a script (although most have it memorized by now), the piece must come from a published source, it must ber 10 minutes long (most are around 8-9), and they are restricted to "minimal movement."

This year my students are competing with selections from The Green Mile, The Hobbit, Love Bites, Life Among the Savages, The Hunger Games, some creepy murderer book I don't recall the title of, and some kinda-funny book about a girl stalking a boy she met in math class. The poems are from Rives, Taylor Mali, Roald Dahl, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

They've done decently in those categories, but Poetry's the strongest this year. My Rives girl and my Mali girl have been trading 1sts back and forth since the start of the season. Yay slam poetry!

Impromptu Speaking
In this event, students draw three topics; a word, a phrase, and a sentence. One of those must be a current event. For example:

Staplers
No internet in Egypt
You get what you pay for.

And they get 5 minutes to prepare a 3-5 minute speech on that topic. They are allowed 1 3x5 notecard to use for prep and while speaking.

It's a popular event for beginning speechers, since they think that it's less work than an interp round. Impromptu-ers are also the worst about showing up for practice, since they "don't have anything to practice." Au contraire! And it shows - the ones who work with me on how to plan out a speech quickly, how to organize your thoughts and arguments, how to reach the 3-mminute mark, how to deliver your speech, how to move appropriately, how to hook your judge and create a call-too-arms, and so on inevitablly do better at meet. Funny how that is.

Impromptu is very similar to the other "draw" event...

Creative Storytelling
CST attracts the same kind of students as Impromptu. In this one, the students get 15 minutes to prepare and act out a story based on one of three prompts that consist of a character, a setting, and a situation. For example:

Character: A hotdog vendor
Setting: On a street corner in New York City at lunchtime
Situation: At the peak of the lunch rush you discover that your wedding ring has fallen into the vat of hotdogs.

You have 3-5 minutes to tell/act out that story. And it is more about acting than speechifying. Most of the events are, actually.

Original Oratory
OO is probably what you imagine when you think about competing in speech. The students research and write a 7-10 minute speech on a topic of their choice, then deliver it from memory. This year's topics from my team are The Coffee Trade, White Slavery, Ducktales, and Youtube addicts. My Coffee girl had won a lot of awards this year, but then she's been competing in OO all of her high school career and she usually wins. The others are all strong speakers, too, so we've got a good chance in this category.

Solo Acting
... is a 7-10 minute monologue performance. it's a tricky one to find material for, since it's rare in theater to have a character give such a long monologue. One of the rules is that you "must retain the original persona" - in other words, you can't play more than one character. As a result, a lot of competitors pick schitzophrenic pieces so they can be flashier for the judges. I think it's a stupid rule myself. I have two kids in this category who have held their own all year, including some firsts - a girl doing a piece from Wintergirls and a boy doing Paul's monologue from A Chorus Line.

Duet Acting ( Dramatic or Humorous)
These events are scenes, basically. My kids are doing the Alcyoone and Ceyx myth from Zimmerman's Metamorphoses (and they've taken first almost all year with it), a scene from Miller's Playing for Time, a reduced version of the Reduced Shakespeare Company's Complete Hollywood, and a shortened version of Alan Ackburn's The Boy Who Fell Into a Book. These are probably our strongest categories this year, actually.

And, finally, there's debate. At Festival we have two kinds:

Public Forum Debate
...which none of my kids are doing. It's in teams of two and they debate a topic that's released monthly. The idea is that they should debate it without debate jargon - it should be for the "public." That doesn't really happen, though. The other type...

One-on-One Value Debate
... is where two competitors go head-to-head to debate a topic that they are given 1/2 hour before the debate. They don't get any resources to prep with, so the arguments are based on their prior knowledge and are written for them to argue a value rather than a policy. Something like "After-school activities detract from high school students' academic achievements."

I have two students doing it 1:1, both of whom are sorta new at it. One's a sophomore, though, and once he gets some more history classes under his belt, he'll be great.


And there you have it. That's what my students are doing right now and what I've been spending my after-school hours and weekends doing since August. I think we'll do well today, but theree's really no way to tell since the judging is pretty completely subjective anyway.

Still, fingers crossed!

You Boys Are Gonna Get Me In So Much Trouble

As I mentioned previously, I am dutifully persuing my goal to be more outgoing in the hopes of actually going on date-like outings. Naturally, given my work schedule for 10 months of the year and travel schedule for the other two, "outgoing" means "trying to meet people online".

Annie gave me some very good advice when I bemoaned the awkwardness of writing profiles about yourself earlier this week. Rather than trying to "tell us a little more about yourself and what you're looking for in a match," I'm telling a travel story. After all, my tale of fighting a monkey on top of a waterfall does a much better job showing who I am than something along the lines of "So, I'm a high school teacher? Who likes to travel? And reads a lot?"

After cutting my 7000+ characters blog entry down to less than 2000 characters (Whoo!) I finished my Chemistry.com profile last night. I even found a headshot I tolerate (which is an entirely different issue. Turns out, I don't like any pictures of me taken in the last seven years. Or rather, I don't like any pictures of me when looked at with the intention of trying to convince someone to want to know me. If you already know me in person, no problem. You can see me covered with blood, sweat, or Shakespeare. But if you've never met me before, well, I just don't have anything picture-wise that I think makes me look attractive enough to click "yes").

But then I hit the wall of "Oh, yeah, this stuff costs money." A lot. Chemistry.com wants $50 for a one-month membership. So, I'll put that on hold until either 1) I decide that their service is worth it and/or 2) they offer a truly great sale.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about what kind of person I am interested in. One recent conundrum aired by internet "dating" by is how very much the pond shrinks with the Mormons-only restrictions. I don't know how to solve that pickle yet - if the choice is between not marrying at all and marrying someone outside of my faith... well, I just don't know.

What I do know is how much I like nerds. Don't get me wrong, this kind of thing is also very nice:



But what does it say when I like the fact he mentioned the mighty sequoias of the Redwood forest more than his abs?

It means I like nerds, my friends. You want to see hot? Watch this. (Sadly, embedding is verboten.)

Categorizing your home library? HOT.

That's John Green, author of one of my very favorite YA novels, Looking for Alaska. One of my speech kids is doing an Original Oratory at State tomorrow all about the glories of YouTube. At the top of her arguments is the awesomeness of nerdfighters. I have read all of Green's books, but I was not aware of his vlogging goals. Hence my research and subsequent attraction reveries tonight.

So here's the question: Where are the single nerdy LDS boys my age hiding?

And the scarier, bigger question: If they do exist, would they even be interested in me?

Shaw

For my upcoming spring break, I get to go visit Emily and Co. again. After all, it was a pretty great trip last year, so why not?

Happily, Emily is not only okay with my inviting myself up for a visit, she is a fabulous adventure-planner. Shortly after I booked my plane tickets, Emily and I had the following email exchange, which I submit to you now as evidence for why she remains one of my very favorite people:

(Click for easier viewing)

Thinking

1. I'm very tired, so this will be an unthoughtout post.

2. I'm tired because of the speech meet last weekend. It was an overnighter again, this time in Brush. The meet was understaffed for judges, too, so it went long. Essentially, I worked from 7 AM Friday until 10 PM Saturday.

3. The kids did pretty well, though. We took first in the duet humor, duet drama, and poetry categories, plus a bunch of other awards, so yay.

4. I was very good and got up for church on Sunday, too.

5. I got a new calling in church a few weeks ago - they wanted me to teach the 4 and 5 year olds. Not my ideal, but I'm starting to get in the groove of figuring out how to plan for teaching the squirmy little things.

6. (For example - I brought a bagful of scarves and we acted out the story of Moses to learn about the 10 commandments. I especially liked it when the girl playing Moses flung the sparkly red scarf around her neck and announced to the Israelites, "I'm a fancy lady!" as she flounced her way across our pretend desert.)

7. But then they called me in after church Sunday to say they wanted me to switch jobs. Now I'm going to be playing the piano in Relief Society.

8. I'm really, really glad they didn't make me Relief Society president again. I'm rusty on the piano, but that I can handle right now.

9. The state speech meet is this Friday and Saturday. I'm hoping I'll have time for a nap on Sunday.

10. I spent my naptime last Sunday having lengthy perplexing and intriguing discussions by phone with friends.

11. CU Boulder's Theater Department is doing Rent next month. I'm organizing an evening field trip to see it.

12. 52 students have signed up so far.

13. We might have to take two buses. To Boulder. In February. At night.

14. I decided we'd leave for the show an hour early, departing right after rehearsal that day. This is largely because I want to release them onto Pearl Street for dinner. Because Pearl Street is awesome, and they need to figure that out.

15. I am completely dissatisfied with the LDS dating sites. They are ad-ridden and fruitless.

16. Jennifer suggested I try Chemistry.com. I've taken the personality test, but am stumped by the final pages where I'm supposed to
a) Write a headline for myself (2-128 characters) and
b) Write an essay about myself and what type of person I'm looking for (200-2000 characters).

17. Complete writer's block and general annoyance at the perpetuating pick-up-line-iness of the "headline." Really, ew.

18. (And for my wealth of married friends out there who have expressed envy over my summers of travel, I hereby point out that you do not have to write a headline for yourself, write an essay about who you want to date, nor do you have to find a photo of yourself that will not make someone immediately decide against getting to know you better. I call the game severely in your favors.)

19. The musical's going well. No issues with the double casts, from what I can tell. So, yay! They ran through the opening dance today, which Rachel taught them last Thursday. And they remembered it! They needed a lot of polishing, and we practiced being more like Martha Graham, but really not bad for a three-day gap.

20. Three cold sores in the last two weeks. I'm just sayin'.