Redbox

Redbox is an amazing invention. You can rent a movie for one night for $1.29 with tax. I signed up for their email list or whatever. They are always sending me codes for rent one get one free. You can't beat that. I remember the days when renting movies would cost $5 per movie. Yes, you would have them for 5 days or so, but who really needs a movie for that long? I don't get a chance to use Redbox too much because I'm always busy. I think tonight I'm going to rent two movies and spend the night laying low and watching these movies.

What's the Point?

Teachers have a make up snow day tomorrow. Kids will not be there. Our principal was going to let us sign in today so that we didn't have to come in tomorrow. The board isn't allowing that though. Our principal said we can come in at 8, sign the sheet, then leave. What's the point in that. I really don't want to drive 20 miles each way to put my name on a sheet of paper. It will obviously take me much longer to travel than the time I will be in the school. Oh well. Nothing I can do about besides complain...

Spelling Bee

I love how they show the National Spelling Bee on ESPN. It's definitely not a sport. I guess it's entertainment. Typically the kids that are in the spelling bee have last names that they can't even spell. I think that the judges should ask them to spell their last names. That would make it interesting. The fact that I'm sitting here right now watching the spelling bee is pretty sad in itself. What has my life come to?

It's Official

As many of you know, I've had quite a tumultuous start to my teaching career in first grade. Before I flew to North Carolina for an interview, I knew it was a first grade position. I also knew that I didn't want to teach first grade. I've always wanted to work with the older kids. I also knew I was in no position to turn down a job offered to me. I have learned a lot while teaching first grade. However, starting next year, I am moving to a school just 3 miles from my current home. I will be teaching 4th grade. I am not officially teaching just ELA yet, but more than likely will be. I will be saving a ton of money on gas and I will be teaching a grade I feel more comfortable in. It was a win-win situation. I have 11 more days of school with my 1st graders. I will miss them, but I'm extremely excited for next school year to begin. I'm thrilled that I get to start the year in the August when the kids start instead of January. That was by far the most challenging part of this move. Now I'll be moving on to bigger and better things!

Radio Frequencies

I never understand when a radio comes in and out of the feed. There are many times when the radio station works fine. Then I'll be stopped at a red light and the station will lose its frequency and go to another station. Then when I start driving again, it will go back to the first station. It makes no sense to me. It has happened a lot since I moved down here. I guess that will be one of life's many unsolvable mysteries.

Casino

I went to the Harrah's Casino in Cherokee, North Carolina yesterday and came home today. It was just over a 5 hour drive each way. That was not fun. However, the scenery going through the mountains was beautiful. The casino was in the middle of nowhere. It was massive! I got lost in there about as many times as the amount of money I lost. I had a really great time though. I'm glad it's 5 hours away. Now I won't be tempted to go there as often as I went to Turning Stone. My friend and I were debating if whether 1 night or 2 nights would be better but decided on 1 for this trip. We gambled yesterday and went home today without gambling because my friend still had 2 and a half hours home from my house. I wish we could have went to the casino today to gamble. Maybe next time we will go on a Saturday and stay a little into Sunday, go home, and my friend can then go home Monday. I'm just glad I was able to get my gambling fix in.

2 Year Anniversary

2 years ago on this date, I started writing in this blog daily. I have amassed just over 700 posts in 2 years. If I did a post every single day, I should have 730. However, I missed some days when I was on vacation to here or there. I will miss tomorrow night because I will be out of town. It has been very tough trying to come up with different things to write about each night. I'm sure I have repeated myself numerous times. I am really struggling for ideas. I have a very exciting summer coming up so that will give me plenty of things to write about. Let's see how many more years I write daily in this blog.

Glasses

I have had the same frames for my glasses since I think 10th grade. That's over 10 years. I have felt no need to get new frames since these work perfectly fine. I am starting to feel like I need new frames though. I can't tell you how many times I have stomped on my glasses. If you look at them on my head, they are crooked. I went to Lens Crafters the other day to look at frames. I found two that looked halfway decent and that I didn't think were too pricey. However, the lady priced them for me and I was shocked. If I wanted new frames, I'd also have to get new lenses. Even with a 30% discount the price was still about $350! I am not spending more than a car payment on new glasses. No thank you! I will make these last as long as humanly possible.

Hooky Fail

A few weeks ago I talked about how I really wanted to take a mental health day but I just didn't feel right to take a day off to do nothing. Yesterday afternoon, I finally decided to man up and take a day to myself. I have had a sore throat and running nose for over a week now. I wanted a day away from the kids to relax. However, I woke up this morning with a worse sore throat and cold than ever. I decided to call a doctor and try to get an appointment for today. I first went to get the crack in my window fixed. The guy turned on the AC in my car to cool off the glass and the crack spidered. They had to replace the entire windshield. Unfortunately, I don't have full glass coverage and they didn't have a new piece of glass. I'll be getting the glass fixed next Tuesday and I'll have to pay the deductible. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then I went to the doctor and was there for about an hour and a half. All the doctor said was that I have slight inflammation of the throat and it's probably just a virus. He prescribed me mouth wash for $28 but I passed on that. I'll ride it out. I planned on relaxing today on my planned day off. Instead, I went to the doctor's and failed at getting my windshield fixed. Sigh...

The Sky is Falling

I was driving home from work today when all of a sudden I see this rock or something small like it flying down from the sky. I was driving and had nowhere to go. Needless to say, I got lucky and it hit my windshield just above my wipers. It cracked the windshield and shattered the glass and it went all over me! I'm kidding. The glass didn't shatter. However, it did nail the windshield which caused a crack about the size of a dime. I called my insurance and I'm getting the windshield fixed for free tomorrow. That's definitely good. However, I have no idea where this rock or whatever object came from. That wasn't cool at all. At least it was minimal damage and it will be free to fix. Thank you insurance!

Donating to Children and Troops

A few minutes ago, someone rang my doorbell several times and knocked on my door a lot. I figured it was a friend so I answered my door. No stranger would continuously ring your doorbell and knock on your door many times, right? Wrong. I answered the door and some lady starts rambling on about how she needs points to get a trip overseas for something or other. She gets points if I buy magazines for the troops. I let her do her spiel and then I told her that I don't have money to donate. She said they can't accept donations, it's for the kids and troops. I said, yes, a donation of magazines coming from my money. This is the second time someone has come to my door trying to get me to buy magazines so they could have money for something. Sorry, I'm not willing to spend money so you can go on vacation. I'll attempt to save money so I can go on vacation myself.

Sleeping with the TV On

Sleeping with the television on is a great song by Billy Joel. It's also something that I have to do for whatever reason. When I lived with my parents, I would leave the TV on all night. Now that I live on my own and I am very conscious of my electricity bill, I turn on the sleep timer for one hour. I don't know why I have to sleep with my TV on. I turn the volume on very low so I can hardly hear it. I don't know if the light from the TV helps me sleep or what it is. Maybe I'm just weird. If you know me, you already know I'm weird. Okay, time to turn on the TV and go to bed.

Attempting to Bowl

I don't understand why this always happens to me! I went to the bowling alley today and could not bowl because there was a league going on. This used to happen all of the time when I was in New York. We would never call in advance. We would just show up and be turned down. It's so frustrating! We went back a few hours later today and I did awful! I bowled a 61 and a 100. Oh well. I hadn't bowled in several months and it was free so it's all good.

5 Years Ago

5 years ago on this date, May 17, 2009, I graduated from SUNY Potsdam with my undergraduate degree. I cannot believe I graduated college 5 years ago! It has gone by very quickly. I never predicted that I would be where I am now. If you had told me after I graduated that in 5 years I would have 4 self-published books and I'd have a teaching job in North Carolina, I would have told you that you were nuts. I never thought I would spontaneously fly down to North Carolina for a job interview and then move one month later. I had no idea I'd write books. I thought I was going to have a teaching job near home in New York. I normally have tentative plans for the future. I can tell you that I have absolutely no idea where I'll be in 5 years when I'm talking about me graduating college 10 years ago. I have no idea what I'll be doing after this school year. I'll just take things one day at a time.

Summer Job

I have no idea what I'm going to do for work in the summer. Since I started here in January, I could not get paid 12 months. I can only get paid 10 months. My last check will be May 31. I won't get another check until I think the end of September, maybe August. Either way, I will be going 2-3 months without pay if I don't find a summer job. I've been looking, but many jobs say do not apply if only looking for summer work. There are other jobs that only pay minimum wage. It's going to be hard to find a job that I can work for the summer and get paid more than minimum wage. We will see what happens.

Money Into Nothing

I never wanted to put money into nothing. However, I had no choice when I moved here because I had and still have no idea what the future holds. Renting an apartment is putting money into nothing. I would have much rather bought a house. Needless to say, there was no way I was affording a house. My lease isn't up until January. Hopefully by then I'll know what I want. I probably won't though and might still have to put money into nothing and pay rent. Who knows?

Master Pencil Sharpener

First graders break their pencil points a lot. First graders take forever at the pencil sharpener so that they can waste time. First graders aren't strong enough to use the pencil sharpener on the wall. My first graders broke the electric pencil sharpener that I bought. Therefore, whenever they "break" their pencil, I make them give me the pencil so I can sharpen it. I am not lying to you when I say I probably sharpen 20-30 pencils each day. Each student magically loses their pencil overnight. Each morning, the pencils somehow don't have a point anymore. This year, I have definitely spent more time sharpening pencils and attempting to get my class to behave than I have taught. Oh well. I can't wait for next year!

Snapchat

I'm not sure why, but I joined the Snapchat band wagon this past weekend. Snapchat is a pretty ridiculous app where you take a picture or video, add a caption, send it to friends, and it disappears in 10 seconds or so. What's the point of it? I have no idea. The creators thought it would be good because if you take bad pictures, there is no trace of them. However, friends can save that picture if they take a screen shot of it. Naturally, I would assume Snapchat has a server where all pictures are saved somewhere. It's just another lame app for people to take selfies and make fools of themselves. Unfortunately,  I'm now one of those people who have this app.

Slow Cooker Fail

You can't burn anything in a slow cooker, right? Wrong! Whenever I cook pulled pork in the slow cooker, I typically put it in around 10-11PM before I go to bed. I put it in with soda and some spices so it can break down. Then around 12 the next day, I drain it, shred the meat, then put BBQ sauce in it and stir often until dinner. Yesterday, I put my pork in with soda and spices at 2:30. Before I went to bed, I shred it and put in BBQ sauce and didn't touch it until this morning. I walk over to the slow cooker this morning and see the meat was pitch black and crusted to the pot. I was not happy! I have been soaking the pot for over an hour. I'm not looking forward to trying to get the burned meat off. Oh well, you live and you learn.

5AM

I cannot tell you the last time I went to bed at 5AM. I've seen that time when getting up, but rarely do I see it before I go to bed. I've also seen that time when I've done overnight shifts at the grocery store. Other than that, I'm guessing the last time I went to bed at or after 5AM was prom night 10 years ago or so. It's unheard of for me. My body physically can't stay up that late. However, last night it somehow did. My friends and I normally hang out until late. Last night was even later than usual for some reason. As always, I had a ton of fun. However, I'm paying the price right now because it's only 6:42 and I can hardly function. I plan on going to bed early tonight, but whenever I plan to go to bed early, it never happens.

Grits

Everyone down south has told me that I have to try grits. If you don't know what grits is, it's basically a white oatmeal. I finally tried it yesterday. I was told I had to put butter and shredded cheese in it. I had no problem adding either since I love cheese. It tasted bland. The texture was weird. It was only okay. I had it at the school and as we all know, school food isn't the best. I still have to try grits somewhere else to get a better opinion of it. There is still a whole lot more southern cooking I have to try while living down here.

Another Book

I need to get motivated to write another book. I'd have to be extremely careful if I were to write this non-fiction book. The stuff that happens in the "school" I work at is unreal. When I tell people some of the things that happen I get two reactions. One is the jaw drop and the other is that I have to be lying. I'm a fiction writer and I can't make up the stuff that's taking place. If they had cameras in the school, it would make for an outstanding reality TV show. I should start keeping a log of the crazy things that happen so that I can eventually write a book. I'm just too darn lazy to do that though. We will see what happens.

Glasses vs. Contacts

I'm not a fan of wearing glasses. However, I would never want to wear contacts. I couldn't stand putting something into my eyes. Everyone who owns contacts says that they don't feel it. No thank you. I'd rather not try that. I'll stick with glasses. I really need new frames since I've had these since sophomore year of high school. They are in awful shape but they do the job so I'll keep them instead of spending $500 on new ones.

New Chair

When I went furniture shopping in January, I sat in a reclining fake leather chair that I loved. Unfortunately, they said it wouldn't be delivered until the end of April because it was sold out and they had to make more. I sat in two other chairs and then in that chair again. The one I had to wait for was the most comfortable. It was surprisingly the least expensive one too. I finally got that chair yesterday. I sat in it and realized it wasn't quite as comfortable as I remembered. Don't get me wrong, it's still comfortable. I'm guessing the other one was more comfortable because more people have sat in it. I'm glad that all of my furniture is finally in my apartment.

Money Pinching

There are some areas in life where I try to save money and other areas where I don't care. I do try to save money when buying food. I use coupons and buy products on sale. However, if I want something, I'm going to get it. I'll complain that I spent too much on it when I buy it. When I eat it, I'll be saying how delicious it is. Another area I have been pinching money on is my electricity bill. I've had 4 electricity bills since moving. My first one had a $17 start up fee in addition to the total price. The second one went up $3. The third one went down $15. This most recent one went down a dollar from the last one. The reason it keeps going down is because I try to never turn on my heat or in this case, central air. I'm pretty sure I'm going to change my money pinching habits with this soon because it is hot in my apartment! When it's 90° outside in May, it's about 80° in my apartment. I gotta save the money somehow or I won't have any left!

Decorations

I'm not someone who loves to decorate my apartment. It took me until yesterday to buy anything for my place. I don't mind the naked walls. Not only that, I have no fashion sense. I don't know what "looks good" or what looks bad. I don't bother putting in any effort in doing so either. I went to the store and saw so many cheesy love quote posters that were totally not me. I finally found a few sports posters to hang up. At least I have something up now.

On Demand

Now that I don't have DVR, I've been using On Demand. It's great, but nowhere near as good as DVR. You can get pretty much anything on On Demand. However, you cannot fast forward through commercials. So your half hour show will last the entire half hour. I guess I'll just have to get used to it. First world problems.

Yawning

It's annoying when people say, "Are you tried?" after they see me yawning. My response is typically, "No, I'm getting oxygen to my brain." I heard that from somewhere. People yawn to get oxygen to their brains. It also typically means they are tired. Yawning is also contagious. Once someone yawns, other people around them are likely to yawn too. My brother read a story about yawning during his SAT's and started yawning. He noticed that most of the people in the room yawned while reading that story too. I bet you are yawning while reading this blog post. ;)

Tough Love

I am extremely hard on my first graders. I do it because I care. Today, when they acted up, I wouldn't let several watch a movie. Instead they had to write "I will listen to my teacher and follow all directions" 10 times. I then made them apologize to me for their behavior. Naturally they acted all apologetic, but later in the afternoon, it was as if it meant nothing. I try so many different things to get my students to behave. It all boils down to how their parents raise them. I can't compete with that.

Dialect

As y'all know, the way people talk in the south is much differently than the way people talk up north. I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing. It's just the way it is. My friends and I have a lot of fun making fun of each other with the way each of us talk. We will often stop the other person when we hear them say a word much differently than we say it. It's hard to give examples on here because I have no idea how to spell some of the words. The south also just has different terms for things like children are youngens and when they misbehave they cut up and I could go on and on about different things they say. It's been fun listening to the different dialects.