Dangerous Minds

Every Monday I student teach at a middle school in Dorchester. I really love some of the kids and I've learned a lot overall... but Dorchester is the ghetto and some of these kids are borderline evil. Not evil really...just troubled and extremely mean. Like...REALLY mean. And scary. I feel scared most of the time that I'm with them. And they're smart asses too. They make me feel like a complete moron on a regular basis. But of course when I started, I had visions of myself coming in and being a total Michelle Pfeiffer on their tough exteriors. It did not happen that way. Not even close.

cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErMWX--UJZ4&feature=player_embedded

this one's for you, cristy

I know my blog entries have seemed a little lazy recently... And by that I mean, they're mostly pictures of other people's creative work, and not much of my own thoughts, etc. But I swear, I'm really not lazy. It's just that I'm in finals right now, and I had Christmas gifts to buy, and cards to send, and a boyfriend who was a complete gimp for a week and would say things to me like, "Can you pick up that piece of mail on the floor? I dropped it yesterday morning." So yeah, I've been busy. But after next week, my life should be seriously quiet for the next month, and during that time, I have a whole list of things to accomplish:

1. Blog.

2. Paint.

3. Blog about painting.

4. Finish reading Harry Potter 4, which I started in SEPTEMBER and its a kids' book and I couldn't finish it in four months??

5. Watch soooo much TV...I miss you, TV. We used to be such close friends.

6. See people. People who don't work with me or go to school with me. Just people that I like.

7. Read more stuff.

8. Exercise for the first time since...I don't want to say it.

I can't wait.

{ etsy }

Etsy is my new favorite website ever. I'm crazy about it. I've used it before (Mom, I think your Christmas present last year was an Etsy find...) but I recently re-discovered my love of it. Here are a few of the best shops I've found:

KyleAnnMetals (http://www.etsy.com/shop/kyleannemetals), easily the cutest rings I've ever seen. I want them all.

Flourish Bath + Body (http://www.etsy.com/shop/FlourishBathBody)... it's hard to judge bath products from an internet site, so I hardly every buy anything scented that way. But the packaging on her lip glosses and body scrubs drew me in, so I went for it. I haven't received my order yet but I'm anticipating greatness.

CrArt Handmade Jewelry (http://www.etsy.com/shop/craftsyuri) is another jeweler that I am just nuts about. I want everything. EVERYTHING!

Crazy Boy (http://www.etsy.com/shop/CrazyBoy) has such chic and timeless purses.

If you find any more great Etsy shops that I don't know about, send them my way! I love buying from Etsy because you can see your money going directly to the artist...rather than buying something similar (and probably more expensive) from a chain store.

i am obsessed with tara donovan

She's an artist who makes incredible work out of paper plates, styrofoam cups, tape, plastic straws, and other everyday items. She was exhibiting at the ICA earlier this year and I missed it...I'm kicking myself eternally. Her work is so insane and so beautiful.

Here's the link to her wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Donovan

Here's some of her work:

(Styrofoam cups)

(Paper plates)

(Styrofoam cups/hot glue)

(Adding machine paper)

(Drinking straws)

(Drinking straws from a distance)

(Scotch tape)

i got Arby's

Thanks to Mary for sending me this amazing flow chart. It is seriously so accurate! I love Arby's!

Samantha and Shep's Excellent Adventure

Yesterday, Cathy had meetings all afternoon and asked me to take her labradoodle, Shep, on a walk in the mid-afternoon. I was suuuuper excited to do that because I love Shep, and it was a really nice day out, and I've never walked him before. Here are some pics of our jaunt around campus!







Part of the reason I like Shep so much is that he reminds me of Scott. They're both tall and have curly hair; they both think that they are entitled to eating half of my lunch and they pout if I don't let them; and they both are stronger than me and pull me places I don't want to go. (Shep pulls me into heavy traffic, Scott pulls me into Sports Authority.)

Something that's NOT the same about Shep and Scott is that Shep relieves himself outdoors and I have to clean it up in a plastic bag whilst gagging.

one of the funniest things i've ever seen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD_6uld50Fs&feature=related

Don't watch this at work if you don't want your boss to see you rolling around on the floor crying with laughter. (I do want my boss to see me doing that, so it was fine for me.)

MIT is funny

There are funny things about working at MIT. One of the funny things is that when someone smells smoke they immediately assume the building is going to explode and/or we're smelling like napalm or something. Because, like, there's crazy chemicals and junk in the labs and a lot of weirdos working in them and I don't think napalm is all that hard to make anyway.

Another funny thing is that most of the buildings were renovated in the late-70s or early-80s so when I walk through the halls I sometimes pretend that I'm Theo Huxtable in that one episode of the Cosby Show where he goes to college and finds out he's dyslexic. The buildings just look like what a college is "supposed" to look like. Its awesome and I'll try to take pictures of the really cute stuff soon.

A third funny thing about MIT is that there are world famous scientists all around and they just look like normal people. The other day I was in an unfamiliar building for a meeting and I left to go to the bathroom, but I didn't know where it was. So I stuck my head in the copy room and asked a guy in there for directions, and he gave them to me, and then I thought maybe he was like a Nobel Prize winner or something, and there's no way to know! I might have gotten directions to the crapper from Stephen Hawking! He wasn't in a wheelchair so probs wasn't The Hawk, but I don't really know any other famous scientists off the top of my head to use as an example. I am an embarrassment to my employer. (If my life really was the Cosby Show, I would have asked a stranger for directions to the bathroom and he'd turn around to reveal that he was Barack Obama. But my life is not a sitcom.)

My office.

My favorite room - its like a lounge down the hall, I think its so adorable and picturesque with the books and the bikes.


Giant tank of nitrogen. In the hallway. Whatevs.

things

1. I took that picture tonight of a tree illuminated by the street lights on my walk home. I like it.
   
2. I got an A on my first grad school paper. An A! I know, I'm horrible, I shouldn't brag on the internet. But this is so exciting for me. After 4 years of college where I scrounged up Bs at my best and Cs normally, a graduate-level A feels great.
3. Sarah started her own blog! Please click here and read all about venison, her first entry: buttersbetter.blogspot.com
4. I work with this dog every day. I feed him beef stew so he'll like me.

Ehhhhhhhh the stupid blogger numbering thing is messed up and it changed my 5 to a 1 and I can't fix it and I'm too tired to try more so whatever. Stop judging.

1. On Friday I went to Trader Joe's, and while I was there I bought some raspberry candies for Scott, because he likes them and rarely goes to Trader Joe's on his own. So then, they were sitting on my desk for a couple days, and I decided I'd open the box and try one. You know...just one. Well I ended up eating half the box (not joking, we estimate about 400-500 calories worth of candy in two days) and now I'm on a strict detox. It was horrendous and I am never doing that to myself again. AKA...not until next week, at LEAST. Here's a link to a Japanese article about these candies: http://www.nichibeitimes.com/?p=4872. You KNOW if the Nichi Bei Times is covering it, they're newsworthy.
   

An Arts Approach to Multicultural Education

I had class this weekend. All weekend. Exhausted. I'm so exhausted. 23 hours of class in 48 hours. Bullet points of "highlights" below.

• Girl had whale eyes. I recognized them from seeing the Dolphins and Whales IMAX at the New England Aquarium.
• Midget wore berets every day. Saturday beret was bedazzled. On half.
• Instructors were Bea Arthur and Jeanie from I Dream of Jeanie.
• Heard Bea Arthur fart.
• Sat on little chairs.
• Made sculptures out of our bodies.
• Threw stuffed animals at each other.
• Journaled about our feelings on 8 separate occasions.
• Whale eyes couldn't pronounce R sounds.
• Hula hoops.
• Dancing.
• Poetry.
• Ladysmith Black Mombazo.

These are just a few impressions. I can't put them together any better than this. My brain is so fried. Final thought...I paid approximately $2400 for this experience.

Fantastic. I'm having a fantastic year.

Things that are true:

• Scott gave me a Snuggie for our 6 month anniversary.
• I ate lunch today at 10:45am because I couldn't wait any longer.
• I moved my bed last night by myself and my new furniture arrangement makes me really happy. I think I accidentally feng shuied my bedroom. How the crap do you spell that?
• Jesus taught me how to use Dreamweaver and published my broken webpages for me in the premier miracle of this decade.
• I toured a Montessori school this morning and it was so wonderful I almost cried and now I want to be a Montessori teacher but I don't know howww.
• I saw a man on the T this morning who was asleep and snoring with his hand down his pants.
• I had my first ChocoTaco today (for second-lunch) and I'm in love.

We Are the Cooooolest

Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year, and it makes me do crazy things. Don't tell the Target workers.

Banana-rama:


Hot Dog Shimmy:

Dorkface McGeeks-a-lot

My boss Cathy has been home with her sick baby yesterday and today, leaving me completely alone in the office. I've been really bored because I have no one to talk to and hardly any work to do. This is how I've been entertaining myself today:

ps

I feel the need to clarify, since there has been some confusion. (Cassie...Abby...I'm looking at you two.) I did not actually get my hair cut. It's a wig. It's supposed to make me look like Michael Scott but kind of makes me look more like Rizzo from Grease. Anyway, my real hair remains untouched. FYI.

i heart the indigo girls

Hey everyone! What do you think of my new haircut?!?

i'm the worst

It's been over a month since I last posted anything on here. I'm the worst. But I've been crazy busy starting school, starting a new job, and keeping up with the rest of my life. To give you a little insight into my mental state these days, I'll share that I bought a box of poptarts yesterday at Shaws. A FAMILY SIZE BOX. If you know me well that should mean something significant to you. So anyway, blogging has been low-priority of late. However, I did take time to do a quick photoshoot with my dear friend Jackie, who did a great job modeling for me outside of a falling-down warehouse by Tufts. Here are a few shots from that night.

Rest in Peace

Friday, August 14 marked my last day at Flybridge, so I'm officially unemployed again (and loving it). However, in contrast to my celebratory feelings of freedom upon finishing my last work day, I also felt a tinge of sadness. The time had come for me to lay a pair of dear friends to rest: my everyday black pumps.

They were faithful and kind to me. They were beautiful, and comfortable, and as I recall, I got them at quite the bargain. They lasted for a long time, seeing me through one of the most challenging and unpredictable years of my life, and I'll never forget that. But, as time went on, they became quite worn (and stinky) and I had to resign them to their final resting place...the trash can.

Here's a photo tribute to two of the greatest shoes I've ever known. Note the close-ups of their battle scars, and don't be ashamed if you have to look away, or shed a tear.


"Thank you for bein' a friend..."


"...travel down the road and back again..."


"...your heart is true..."


"...you're a pal and a confidante."

Eye Spy

This morning on the T I saw a girl with a strange face. Do not misunderstand me - this blog post is not an effort to make fun of her at all, though it might seem that way at first. But think of it more as a sociological inquiry into the relationship between makeup and deformity.

So, to start, let's say this is what a normal face looks like:



This is a rough estimate of what the girl's face looked like:



Now, my question is this: If I had a rogue eye, would I still wear eyeshadow on it?

The girl in question did. She was wearing bright blue eyeshadow on both lids. I feel like...that's not what I would do. Because the idea of eyeshadow is to highlight and draw attention to the eyes. However, it is my understanding that people with deformities generally DON'T want to draw attention to that part of their body. So...should she maybe have worn eyeshadow on only her good eye? But does that just make it weirder?

So then I thought, she should just wear no eyeshadow at all. But, in my experience, well meaning but stupid girls are always trying to give makeovers to the "less fortunate" -- by which I mean that if she was wearing no makeup at all, dimwits might accost her from all angles trying to make her look better.

It's a tough call. I think the resolution is that if I had her problem I would wear mascara on both eyes, and nothing else. But let's hope I never have to make that decision. I'd prefer for my eyes to stay firmly planted where they are. Thoughts, suggestions?

so fetching

Saucier than whom, Sally??? And yes...yes you are. Let's get this woman a promotion up in here!

crime against humanity: crotch-wadding shorts

Dear lord, lady. Go to the mall. Buy yourself a new pair of shorts. I would recommend at least 1, maybe 2 sizes up from these, and an added 2-4 inches to your inseam. They might cost you $30, but trust me. They will change your life. And immediately burn these - they're giving me the twitches.

FAIL.

are you ready to die?!?!?

This weekend I fell blindly into a camping/white water rafting trip with Scott, his roommate Ricardo (an Asian/Brazilian - sounds exotic but he's not really), their friends Mark and Simon, Simon's girlfriend Whitney, and Ricardo's friend Stan (an Asian-Asian ASIAN Asian). I did not understand what I was agreeing to when Scott first presented the idea to me, many weeks ago, but I agreed because I'm a good girlfriend and I thought that if I did this, he'd owe me big and then I'd be able to leverage that debt into him into doing something that I wanted to do later.

I should have been suspicious when, a few days before we were scheduled to leave, Whitney freaked out and she and Simon decided to raft a different (easier) river. Apparently she was watching YouTube videos of the Penobscot and didn't like what she saw. But instead of following in her footsteps and watching the videos myself, I promptly pronounced her "weak sauce" and continued on with our set plan - now as the only Squaw in our group.

Saturday night we arrived at our campsite and quickly set up our tents - actually, that's not perfectly accurate. Ricardo and Mark of course sucked at setting up their tent and needed the help of our resident Eagle Scout, Scott. No surprise there. Then Scout Scott pulled out his MULTIPLE knives and started trying to make us a fire, while sending me searching around the dark woods for sticks. And THEN, when nothing would burn because its been such a moist and disgusting summer, he made me rip pages out of my favorite book, Christy (which we had just bought for 50 cents at the grocery store nigh abouts half an hour prior) to get it started. Au revoir, Acknowledgements page. You will be missed. But anyway, Christy got us started and we were able to make a few smores before bed.

Sleeping, for me, was great. I slept like a baby and when we woke up at 6am, I was a little sleepy but overall, feeling good. Sleeping, for everyone else, was apparently the worst experience of their lives. Or, you would think so, based on the amount of complaining I heard from the boobs I was with. Also, I heard many reports of shenanigans going on in the middle of the night. Stan is quite the snorer, and when Scott couldn't fall asleep due to his rumbling, he got up to shake Stan's tent vigorously to make him stop, and in the process accidentally kicked Mark, who was awake anyway but still deeply offended since he had not done anything to deserve it. Then, Scott decided to pull a Bruno move on Ricardo -- surprising him in a high degree of undress, claiming that a bear had eaten his clothes and that they would be safer together...WINK. To my knowledge, Ricardo did not accept this proposition. He had already taken himself to the backseat of our chariot in an attempt to drown out the noise of a local redneck cover band playing in the campground "bar" down the trail. They regaled drunken, one-eyed townies with their cheap versions of Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam until the wee hours of the morning, and Ricardo was piiiiiiiissed.

Anyway, the sun rose on us Sunday morning and we quickly broke down our campsite and ambled down to the rafting office (the "bar" from the previous evening). We wolfed down our $6 all-you-can eat breakfasts and were ready to go by 7:30, the advertised departure time. I feel like a breakdown of the outfits each of our group members wore would be a really apt way of describing our rafting "personalities" and will be important for understanding the way our whole trip went, so here goes:

Scott "I'm a boyscout and I am so going to dominate this river" McLelland wore a long sleeve nylon shirt, swim trunks, polypropylene socks, and Merrills. (Yeah, Merrills.)

Mark "I'm not uber-prepared like Scott but I'll probably do OK" Wasio wore swim trunks, a t-shirt, and sneakers.

I "Same middle name as Mark" wore the girl version of that outfit, with my bathing suit bottoms underneath running shorts.

Ricardo "I'm a badass I think" Goto wore a tight, white nylon t-shirt which he promptly took off, so as to better bare his chest, with swim trunks, "five finger" shoes (in other words, there was a pocket for each individual toe), and a do-rag. (Yeah, a do-rag.)

Stan "I don't know his last name and I don't know why he thought his choice of footwear was appropriate" wore a t-shirt, swim trunks, and brown leather boat shoes.

We were quite the crew.

After getting fitted with the lamest looking helmets and life jackets EVER, we stood around for like half an hour waiting for the rest of the lazy-ass rafters to show up. Here's a summary of what we all did to pass the time:
-- Scott thought it was funny to bang me on the helmet with his paddle every time I turned my back to him.
-- Ricardo and Stan discussed whether or not it would be possible for a person to have surgery to reduce cankles.
-- Mark...who knows. I have no memory of Mark even being along on most of the trip, even though he was. For all I know, he was shape-shifting back and forth from man to mosquito all day.
-- I spied on the Three Rivers staff and silently willed my favorite staffer to be our assigned river guide. Then I pointed out to Scott the one staffer that I specifically did NOT want to have as our guide. More on that later...

After an eternity of waiting, we finally gathered to hear our safety instructions and then head to the river. Allow me to offer some background info: Up to this point, I was not scared at all about rafting. Upon hearing the safety instructions, I was completely terrified. The last thing they said to us was, "And if you're pregnant, we can't take you." I immediately turned to Scott and blurted, "I'm pregnant! I can't go!" I am, of course, NOT pregnant, but at that moment I was willing to jump at any reason to not get on that raft. They make it sound like certain death, honestly. They talk to you about getting thrown off the raft and floating down river, getting your feet caught in debris along the riverbed, getting towed back onto the raft via rope, and getting trapped underneath of the raft. The river is "Class 5" which is, I understand, no joke. But also, that day the water level was especially high, and they told us it was only a little bit under the level that would classify it as unsafe for commercial use. I was like...HOLY CRAP. I am out of my league fo' REALZ.

Then they assigned groups to raft guides, and of COURSE, we got the one guide that I absolutely did not want. This guy...he was about 6'2, 225lbs, covered in tattoos (including one down his shin bone that read "TORMENTED"), was wearing rhinestone sunglasses and a rhinestone belt buckle, had turquoise-painted toenails, and spent the morning wandering around singing Johnny Cash songs to himself. Needless to say, he totally scared me. Oh, also - his name was Rhino. Yeah.

But once again, I found myself completely in the wrong. Rhino turned out to be the best guide we could possibly have gotten. He was the EMT and trip leader on the river, and was actually a really nice guy. Almost all of the other rafts flipped over, or people fell out, and the raft guided by the guy that I had WANTED actually had a woman get hurt on a rock, and she couldn't finish the trip. (Scott responded with an emphatic "Mmmm HMMM! *Snap!* Told you we didn't want that guy!") Our raft never flipped, although we did come VERY close. And, naturally, Stan fell out twice but that was so not Rhino's fault. Stan just like...popped off the side. We weren't even going through rapids! The second time it happened, when Rhino said "Man overboard!" and I turned around to see that it was Stan who had fallen in again, I accidentally said out loud "Are you kidding me?!"

Anyway, in summary, rafting was nothing to be scared of. Once we got started, it was SUPER fun, and there was very little danger. The rapids only last for a few seconds, and then you paddle over quiet water for EVER before you get to the next rough patch. The worst part, for me, was sitting on the edge of the boat for so long. My butt still aches today. But I am really glad I didn't claim pregnancy. We even went over a waterfall! Then we pulled up to a rock and had the opportunity to go underneath the waterfall on a little ledge. Scott was the first to go, and while he was in there, Ricardo and I accidentally drifted underneath the water and were getting completely dumped on, waiting for him to come out. It was pretty uncomfortable and we ended up paddling away before anyone else went in because it just wasn't working very well.

Some miscellaneous funny items from the day:

-- We paddled under an overpass, and there was a woman standing on it who shouted down to us "Are you ready to DIE?!?!?" I don't know what her deal was.
-- Rhino and another guide, Decker, made plans (by shouting back and forth to each others' rafts) to split a bottle of Wild Turkey that evening and they were particularly excited that someone called Mule Face wouldn't be around to mooch off of them.
-- The guides have some sort of weird language that they speak in. Like, they would yell back and forth "Hey, you gonna diddly do on the sunny side up, Bro?" "Naw, are you?" "Yeah I think so." "Well don't diddle too close to the jibbity jobbity, knowemsayin?" "Yickle in the pickle, no joke! Big A's an angry mistress!"

Gosh, there's so much more to tell. I feel like I have infinite stories from our adventures, but this entry is already suuuuper long. I'll cut it short and if you're lucky, maybe more details will bubble forth from me in later days.

an epistle of love traveling to you through time and space

Certain sweet woodland elves have been whispering into my ears that I have not been blogging enough (or at all, really) and so, at long last, here is a little proof that I still love the internet.

These are some pictures I took of an ad in my mom's Good Housekeeping. These are dolls. Little, creepy, wrinkly, goofily-hatted dolls. I want to buy like 5 dozen of them and fill Scott's roommate's bedroom with them. Scariest. Prank. Ever. (And Ricardo deserves it because he has been giving me undeserved attitude lately. And by "lately" I mean he's only ever given me attitude for as long as I've known him. And by "undeserved" I mean I probably did deserve it.)