:-)

This article is so asinine that it borders on ridiculous.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081212/NEWS08/81212034/1025


If you don’t actually want to read the article, which I don’t blame you, here’s the jist. A Russian man wants to put a trademark on the emoticon ;-)!! What actually made me laugh was the whole time I was reading I kept thinking that I was reading a news skit from SNL. I mean really couldn’t you just hear Tina Fey (Yes Tina Fey, she’s the only SNL anchor I have actually liked in the past 10 years.) commenting on this?

“After trying to have said emoticon trademarked, other Russian Internet entrepreneurs reacted to the effort predictably - :-( ”

(Part of that line was actually from the newspaper article.)

The waiting game

I once heard a newscaster make the following statement about his vacation, "I actually enjoy the week prior to vacation than the actual vacation itself. Now don't get me wrong, I love being places I've never been, but the entire time you are on vacation you are constantly thinking 'four more days till we go back,' and so on. It just take some of the fun out of the vacation."

That's how I feel. If you ask my students they will tell you that my favorite day of the week is Friday. It's my favorite day because I can truly enjoy the feeling of relief of the weekend. It's the only day I'm not counting down the hours and minutes until I have to go to work next. Which is exactly what I'm doing right now. I have 4.5 days until I can begin the 14 day return to work count down. Oh the life I lead....

Picture tag!

Part of this tag is to post the fourth picture from your fourth picture file.

Here's what I got:


This was taken back in October when Ted and I went camping. I was playing around with the lens on my camera. Yes this is a beer bottle.... yes alcoholic beverages are prohibited in state parks... Poetic?

I kind of like the next picture, which is also at the state park. This photo is in its natural state- not edited or photo shop. I could have photo shopped it and made the dark parts lighter, but I really liked the contrast. This took several shots because I had to set my camera at a very low shutter speed.

Tis the Season...

Yesterday I had an interesting experience. If you had talked to me yesterday, interesting wouldn’t have been the word I used to describe my experience.

I was at Wal-Mart yesterday to return a Christmas present that I had purchased that had broke by the time I got it home. Now usually at Wal-Mart there is someone to greet you with your returns to place a sticker on it. There wasn’t. So I proceed to the customer service desk. After waiting for 10 minutes, I get a lady, who to put mildly, was not happy with her lot in life. She proceeds to look over the returned item and then asks me if I had a sticker put on it. I say, “No ma’am, there wasn’t anyone at the door when I walked in.” She quickly informs me that, “yes there was, there is always someone at the door and next time you need to look for them.” At this point my irritation level just sky rocketed. Here I am not really making any fuss and she’s telling me I need to do the job of the Wal-mart employee? We banter back and forth for another 5 minutes because I’m not giving up, until she talks to the manager. NOT to placate me. OH NO. It’s to reiterate what she’s already told me that there is always someone at the front door. At this point I just walked away.

My anger was astronomical. The reason I walked away was because my anger was at such a boiling point that I couldn’t talk much less articulate what I wanted to say, an issue I have when extremely mad – the inability to articulate thoughts. After thinking a few minutes what I wanted to say was this, “I’m sorry you are apparent in a very bad mood, but that is no reason to take your anger out on me. Furthermore I can’t help but noticed that you just asked me to do the job of your employees. If your company would like to enforce certain return policies then perhaps it should have more diligent employee not customers.” Of course I don’t go back and say this but I did want to get the district managers number and tell him.

However much I might have wanted to go back and lay into this woman, I’m glad I didn’t. It wasn’t until much later that I got over my anger– sorta. I am reading a book called Assassination Vacation. In this book it discusses this religious group (I use that in the loosest terms) called the Oneida group from the 1880’s. (You should google them… that are fascinating to say the least.) This group was an early commune of sorts that had a gathering of around 300 people. Once a month they would take time as a community and have a “Mutual Criticism.” This was what I liked to refer to as a “Clearing of the air.” They would basically choose members of the community to stand in front of everyone and the community would air their grievances about said person. My friends and I did this back in middle school, we called it trampoline talks. You can imagine what would precede these clearing of the air talks. Disgruntled communities members and teenage girls refusing to speak for a few days. Sure it makes the person who gave the speech feel better but what about the poor person who was standing in front of the community getting the verbal beating? Not good, let me tell you. It takes lots of love to continuing be friends after a verbal whipping. I know.

This brings me full circle. Should I have, as the Oneida group, have aired my grievances out to this woman, who might just be having a bad day? Would it have actually helped the situation? Probably not. Because once said grievance were stated, I would have walked away possibly costing that woman a job. So instead, I choose to air my anger out in a community of no faces and wish that lady a peaceful Christmas.

THANKSGIVING!

3 of my Favorite Thanksgiving Foods:
1. Turkey and Noodles
2. Pumpkin Pie
3. Sausage Dressing

3 Thanksgiving Foods I usually pass up:
1. The nasty mince meat pie
2. The oyster dressing
3. Yams

3 Things that Thanksgiving isn't Complete Without:
1. Eating with my family
2. Mom and Dad arguing over watching the parade or football
3. Watching the parade because WE always win the fight.

Where do I celebrate Thanksgiving?
I’m a stickler for traditions and it’s lucky that I married a man from Sumner County because I have to have Thanksgiving with my family. This means that I also have to have a second dinner with the Taylor's because I’m unwilling to budge. This is my compromise…

3 Things I do over Thanksgiving Weekend:
1. Shop AFTER all the crazies leave the store… I’ve worked one too many Black Fridays.
2. Put up the Christmas Decorations
3. Watch old Christmas movies on TNT or TBS with Family

3 Things I am Thankful for This Year:
1. A new marriage
2. A healthy Tojo
3. Enjoying the holiday season with all the new additions to the family

What's that smell?

Last week, I walked into a nightmare. Literally. I always get home between 330 and 400 after school. Last Tuesday, I was on the phone with Ted, complaining that the cats had really laid a bomb down. I’ve had cats all my life and never have I had a cat stink up a room like Otis. Unfortunately this was not the source of the smell. I let Tojo out of his prison, aka the kennel, and proceeded to clean the litter box out. At that precise moment I hear a loud, GUSH right beside my foot.

I promise you, the next couple of minutes were like those slow motion moments on TV I have always laugh at because they can’t be real. They are. Tojo had pooped on the floor. Now you must release that I have one of the most well trained dogs out there, which is why it came as such a shock to see Tojo pooping on the floor. At that moment I took stock of his appearance and smell. He was wet from his little stubby feet to hips in what I guessed correctly was diarrhea. Upon inspecting the poop, I noticed that it had blood in it.

After a panicked phone call to Ted, We rushed Tojo to the vet. Of course on the way there he vomits on me. Luckily I had a towel down. We get to the Vet and they decide to keep him over night because he was literally bleeding out his…. you know what. The next day they tell us he’s fine. So what was the problem? NO IDEA. After a huge vet bill, we have no idea why he was bleeding out his you know what or vomiting.

It’s been a week now and all is well in the Taylor house again, but not before we cleaning the entire house….

What would you do?

What would you do if you had gone over to a friend’s house to watch the Titans vs. the Colts, (For those Colts vans out there, I say… sucks to be you!), spent all night hanging out with friends, enjoying playful banter on the game, and just having a good time ignoring all the calls that dare phone you during the stunning game?

Only to see that when the game finished, you had received phone call, after phone call from family trying to tell you that for the past three hours your house has been flooding like a dam broke. Wouldn’t that suck to be you?

Yes, it did suck…. To be my neighbor. Ha! Bet you thought it was Ted and me. Nope. Wrong, we were the ones spending three hours trying to get a hold of our neighbor, listening to the magnificent sounds of rushing water while trying to watch the game. Do you want to know what my wonderful husband said after we couldn’t get a hold of Mike, our neighbor? “I wouldn’t want to be the person who has to pay that water bill…” My sensitive husband, I think just summed up my thoughts exactly.

Is it distressing, that the first thought that crossed both of our minds was, “Glad it’s not me!” Of course, we said this after we finally realized that Mike wasn’t coming home any time soon, and called the water department to come turn off the water. But doesn’t that make it any better?

On a side note, I had actually been home for an hour and had apparently been listening to the rapids the whole time—not realizing that’s what water coming out of a broken pipe….

Carter...

This weekend we were able to go and visit Carter. I was able to use my new video camera and capture Carter at his best... blowing bubbles. Not the best quality, but I think it captures the essence of Carter.

Here's the video. Enjoy!

Video Camera...

So Ted and I had our three year anniversary yesterday. What??? You might ask? Ted and I won't actually have an anniversary until June 21st, silly girl!

Well, because I like to go out and do nice things and get nice things, I decided (emphasis on the I part) to continue celebrating our dating anniversary in some little manner.

To celebrate, I purchased a flip video, which was a very basic tiny 60 min video recorder. And it's totally awesome! See my cool video of the Terror Tojo...

The Cost of Beauty

Today, I had my hair re-colored and trimmed. It is now back to the color at my wedding. However, I feel inordinately guilty! For the cost of my vanity, I could have purchased the new screen door that we desperately need.

For the cost of my beauty I could have:
1. Had my car maintenanced twice over
2. Purchased two complete outfits.
3. Bought 10 new books.
4. Filled my gas tank three time over.
5. Taken Tojo to get his shots --twice
6. Replaced the water filter in the refrigerator about three times over.
7. Painted the upstairs bathroom and two bedrooms.
8. Paid to finally have my wedding dress dry clean and boxed up. (yes still haven't done that)
9. Gone out to eat on Fridays with Danielle six times over.
10. Made Carter over in 6 complete new outfits.

This is depressing. What's even more sad, is now I have to wait until my next paycheck to purchase the items that we really, truly need --- like the books.... :-)

I have issues. My issues are rooted in the fact that I only get paid once a month - 10 months out of the year. Once I have received said paycheck, after a two and half month hiatus, I apparently decided to blow it on a worthy cause. "Desperate Teachers in Need of nice Clothing or Hair." AKA the DTNCH.

Politics...

I have always felt that the one place politics should take a back seat is in the world of education. It has been my opinion that people who work in the education field should be working for the children and nothing else. It's why I love my ELL job. As I walk out of my class each day, I know that I have imparted knowledge on a group of children who value and appreciate what I have taught them. As a teacher, I teach children, that's the key word children, how to speak and read English, regardless of their status in this country, because I am a teacher.

I went into teaching to teach, not to voice my opinions on who to teach. I knew going in that in order to remain an effective teacher to this particular group, I would need to be evaluated on my effectiveness. It was the only effective policy that came out of NCLB, garanteeing teacher effectiveness through maditory evaluation. I am ok with this, because I am a teacher. Even in my brief stint in the corporate world, jobs are easily dismissed if you do not meet your goals in an evaluation. Hence, the point of an evaluation - to evaluate the job and decide if the job has been fulfill.

Therefore, It boggles my mind that my county that I so very much enjoy working with would endeavor to get rid of a superintendent not base an evaluation of his work in the county, but based on the political ramblings of a small minority group of people in the county. We are a county that strives for excellence in education, and strive to live bove the line (don't ask). To believe that a county strives to uphold the illusion of fairness and justice by issuing a character education plan of "living above the line," and then fails misablely to actually set the example is laughable.

Thanks, Sumner County.

Taylor was a good girl

In an ode to one of my favorite singer/songwriter and new last name I choose to name my inaugural blog after a Jack Johnson song. When ever I listen to Jack Johnson's music I feel like I am on the beach. So with the beginning of the new school year, you will find me listening to his music with much more frequency than I had been through out the school year, purely for the relaxation of it.

Its actually rather ironic that I do like to listen to his music at all. Most people will attest to the fact that I really don't like the beach or the pool. I refuse to tan, I hate the hot, and I'm not a person to sit still for long pierods of time. Now don't get me wrong I love listening to the beach and I love sitting out on the beach at night. However, I can only sit at the pool for about an hour. That's it.

I recently figured out why I am such a freak of nature AND that I am not the only one who suffers with this disorder. In my group therapy, aka my old Saturday Issue and Trends class, I found out that it has to do with my personality. My assertive personality hates wasting time. My personality can only function when we have a clear purpose with objectives and goals, and apparently my personality sees no purpose to spending all day on a beach or sitting by the pool ....doing nothing...all...day... long.

There are not that many of us out there, especially in the teaching field. This I think most of all is why I get so very frustrated teaching younger students. For those who know me, you know that I've recently had to pick up an elementary school in my schedule. I am now teaching ELL to a K-2 group. You see my personality just doesn't function if you need to me be, as my father would put it, "all touchy-feely." I don't see the point. Which is why I make a perfect High School teacher. I don't care what your feelings are. Just do it- you know- like the nike commericals.

Anyway, the point is it has been very hard for me to re-aline my teacher format, if you will, to that of someone who has to "care" about the individuals feels inorder to get them to work. Expecially after having on her first day a kindergartener cry on her.

NOW, give me some credit! It wasn't totally my fault. The student in question has some MAJOR home issues and cries for their mainstream teacher as well... "Not MY fault"-I protested to my mom later that night. I just have to remember to be good girl, in the infamous words of Jack Johnson and remember that not every students appreciates my candid view on life.

Au Revoir!