| What's been going on |
[Jan. 22nd, 2008|09:23 am] |
Quick update (of course I always mean it to be when I start it but it doesn't always end up that way)
I'm living at Mom's house alone now. I'm in charge of it, and I buy groceries and take care of Sampson and such. Mom is gone for 1 year (unless we can't find a renter in which case she's coming back in 3 months to work on that first) and if we DO find a renter she's coming back in three months for a short visit for passover and to pick up Sampson.
In job news, I found out that I get to keep my job at Borders Books this Sunday and am no longer in the questionable and precarious category of holiday temp. I work around 35 hours a week.
I got up at 8am this morning even though I work at 2 and I got up the same time yesterday even though it was my day off. I don't really know what's changed but that's definitely not how I used to be.
My room got rearranged I'll probably post the pictures on facebook eventually.
Overall I am doing excellently. |
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| It's the little things |
[Nov. 7th, 2007|01:03 am] |
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My brother finally got the McDonald toy he had been waiting for. It was the main character from the new Bee Movie coming out. He was extremely excited. |
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| I won |
[Sep. 9th, 2007|11:31 am] |
I just won the game, and everyone who read this just lost. Snoogans.
I work at Edina now, and it's the best job I've ever had. I love working in debate and with the students even if my coworkers and the situation can be very frustrating. I think it's just going to get better and better as I get my own group of students to work with and teach. That way I won't feel like I'm in anyone's way, or that I have to hold back some of my thoughts.
I'm still working at Bruegger's. It's not that bad. I worked an 8 hour shift yesterday which went by fairly quickly. As David kindly pointed out: that one shift was as long as the total hours I worked every two weeks in the past month.
I wouldn't say that I am 'happy' because I think that happiness is more of a mindset than a goal or state of being. But I'm good. Really good. |
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| There's a secret there |
[Jul. 11th, 2007|02:13 pm] |
Within the fight and struggle there's a secret. Landreau said that we fight for what we believe to be right because the fight itself is important. It's because it's self affirming. To fight is to reinforce our own sense of worthiness. That we deserve to be treated rightly. And so we are quick to pick sides, even when the fight is not our own. Because when we fight along someone we see as worthy we hope that our struggle with them will make us worthy as well.
To fight is to bring your opponent to your level. To force them to acknowledge you. A fight, a conflict, a struggle, these are waged by those who need recognition. When there is strife there is someone being ignored or at least they feel an essential part of them is being ignored. And couldn't we say then, that conflict could be avoided if people and groups of people weren't so insecure or concerned with forcing others to recognize their worthiness? |
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| Late Night Adventure |
[May. 28th, 2007|10:54 pm] |
Sunday-Monday Adventure:
So, Sunday during the day I cleaned my room, mowed and trimmed the lawn, and did stuff to help out mom because we had resolved the argument about how much and when I helped. I asked her if I could go to play frisbee for an hour before we went to Alex Wilson's house to have dinner with his family, and she said yes. So I went to St Kate's and had an amazing time playing frisbee. I had taken all the stuff out of my pockets and put it in my travel bag so that I could run unimpeded. I had put my wallet and cell phone in my shoes.
To make a long story shorter I walked onto my porch around 4 in the morning. However, I soon realized I was minus my house key. I went around to the garage, hoping against hope that a) the garage door would be miraculously open and b) I had dropped my house key in the car while driving around that day. The garage door was locked. I went back to the porch.
Peering in through the window on the door I saw my travel bag sitting propped up against my backpack next to the new frisbee I had bought that day. That's right idiot, a voice in my head said, you left your keys in that bag that is sitting a mere five feet away but is now irrevocably beyond your reach.
At this point (remember 4 in the morning) I had a brilliant idea. I shall break into my own house. Yes. Luckily it was nondestructive. First I tried to use my ATM card to do that thing in movies where they open the door with the credit card. Unfortunately that particular trick (which I don't know how to do) does not work on deadbolts. No. Then I lifted up the storm window to my room that opens to the porch and tried to pry the window proper open from the outside. Failed, needless to say.
I didn't want to call my mother to face her wrath, so I put two chairs up on the porch and slept there until 530 in the morning. At that point I got chilly and decided she might be slightly less angry because she had gotten more rest. I called her to let me in, and she did, and I collapsed onto my bed. When I woke up around noon, I explained everything and she said (paraphrased and shortened): "I hope there isn't a next time, and if there is call me sooner rather than later because it's harder for me to get back to sleep the more rest I've gotten."
That was the extent of the trouble I got into for coming home 3 hours after my curfew. Sometimes I'm disappointed I missed the whole teenage rebellion thing. But most of the time I'm glad I never gave my parents a terribly good excuse to punish me for things like that. |
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| Like a cloud or something |
[Apr. 26th, 2007|12:01 am] |
I'm so flighty that if something doesn't hold me down, I might just float away.
Ever get that feeling? |
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| Car |
[Apr. 23rd, 2007|03:07 pm] |
My car is dead. What we thought was a busted U-pin (which holds up the drive shaft and is a 30 min repair) is actually something terminal that would cost 2000$ to fix.
A moment of silence please.
But, my Jane and Dad said that they would be me a new car by the time summer rolled around and it's nice out so bussing/walking won't be that bad.
Still...it's goodbye to the old JosephMobile with it's cracked windshield and old Star Tribune newspaper from a year ago. Fare thee well old Blazer, we knew ye and then you were taken from us. Amen. |
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| These Lines That Connect Us |
[Apr. 4th, 2007|01:57 am] |
A couple of months ago I did what I had been meaning to do for years: I looked up my old friend Stephen Holley from elementary school. I found an old scrap of paper with his number on it and called him up and met him at the sucky Dunn Bros and we talked. We still had a lot in common and it was great to catch up.
I invited him to go dancing numerous times, but he put it off and didn't talk to his girlfriend about it. He told me over spring break he was planning an anime fest and he would invite me. I said I would love to and forgot about it until about half a week ago when he called me and invited me this Monday and Tuesday. I couldn't go last night because of Passover (which was fun and delicious) but I went today.
It was a good anime and his friends were really fun and his girlfriend was nice. So I invited them salsa dancing tonight. His girlfriend (Cece) seemed excited so he went along with it. I told him to call me to verify whether or not he was coming.
Later that night I was hanging out at Mac with Colin, Jamie, Gywnn, and Julie and we were planning on going salsaing. It was snowing but we didn't pay it any heed. Stephen called about 20 minutes before we would have left (everyone was in the process of changing into salsa clothes). He said that 94 looked really bad and he had noticed numerous crashes on the way home from an engagement he was attending to with his mom driving and had decided not to come. I polled our group and we opted not to go.
But what if I hadn't met Stephen again and hadn't watched anime with him and invited him salsa dancing today? Could we have ignorantly gotten on the road and gotten in a car crash? Maybe it doesn't seem that...important or likely that this unrelated series of events prevented disaster but life is much more interesting when you assume things like this happen for a reason. |
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| SPEECH |
[Mar. 17th, 2007|03:28 pm] |
I took 2nd in oratory at Park of Cottage Grove today. There was no final rounds, it was just done on scores. I was 1/98, 1/99, 1/100 and got beaten by a random number selection because there was an unresolvable tie between me and this girl. The trophy is pretty nice. Klaus took 3rd in creative, Sarah took 2nd or 3rd in poetry, Francis, Ablavie Epou, and Amanda Weber got honorable mentions. Becca took 6th in prose, Josh Corner got 10th in humor, Jo and JillyJo took 2nd and 3rd in extemp, and we won 4th place team sweeps!!
It was a second tier tournament, but it was a nice way to end the speech season for me. |
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| My dawg |
[Feb. 26th, 2007|12:00 am] |
My Mom finally decided to put Annie to sleep (tomorrow). I don't know how Mom lasted this long after more than a year of cleaning up poop and urine every day and carrying her up and down the stairs every night. Thought you guys might like to know though.
EDIT: Annie had one final last hurrah and pooped and peed in the car on the way to the vets. Luckily my mom foresaw this possibility and covered the back seat in a big rug. |
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| To all you future mothers... |
[Feb. 12th, 2007|09:49 pm] |
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If you happen to ask your teenage son to help you move your unnecessarily large bed so that you can rip up the carpet under it, please do him a favor and relocate the copy of Advanced Sexual Techniques (Volume 2) that you are hiding under it. Thank you. |
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| Storytime |
[Feb. 8th, 2007|11:30 pm] |
Let me tell you a story:
Once there was a thief named Gomer. And Gomer lived in a rather nice house overlooking the city, and had many valuable things in it. One day a thief named Ham broke into Gomer's house and took a cow trinket. Now, Gomer liked this cow trinket very much, and didn't want anything else stolen, so he bought a guard dog.
A few days later, Gomer broke into Ham's house and stole a pig trinket. Ham was very upset and also bought a guard dog. And he went to the house of Put and said "Now look at what Gomer's gone and done, he's put up a guard dog which is plain rude, and done stolen my favorite pig trinket. What do you think about that?" and Put said, "I think that's a right shame."
So Ham and Put went to the house of Gomer, gave his guard dog exlax, and then broke into his house and stole his pet grasshopper, Willie.
Now, Gomer came home and was very angry, and he heard that Ham and Put had worked together to steal from him, so he bought two more guard dogs, and walled off his house. He then retired into his house and never came out for fear that more of his things would be stolen.
And people would go by and say, "That feller seems right rude to have so many guard dogs and a fence", and Ham and Put would say, "Why yes, that there fellow is quite rude, he done stole Ham's favorite pig trinket and h'ain't never gaven it back." |
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| I have been ordered to repost...must obey Colin... |
[Feb. 7th, 2007|09:00 am] |
Comment here and I will:
1)Tell you why I friended you.
2)Associate you with a song/movie.
3)Tell a random fact about you.
4)Tell my first memory of you.
5)Associate you with an animal/fruit.
6)Ask something I've always wanted to know about you. (or, alternatively, something I happen to be curious about at the moment)
7)In return, you will post this in your own journal, so that I may torture you with thinking up responses. |
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| How Am I? |
[Jan. 31st, 2007|12:45 am] |
Well, when I'm not worrying about Greta popping one of her many vital organs (or spontaneously combusting) I'm ok. I just finished my big history paper rough draft which is 700 words over the limit, but I can cut it down. Today I hung out with Alex Wilson, who most of you don't know, but is one of the best guys you could ever hope to meet and that was really fun.
and
The band piece is kicking my ass all over the staff...which is not fun, and between my comments in TOK (which I try to keep neutral) and yesterday in history when I couldn't help but ask "Does anyone [at IB meetings] ever question or comment on how utterly fascist the IB program is?" I think I alienated about half the class from ever wanting to speak to me again.
But someone has to do it. :)
PS No seriously, think about it. IB wants everyone IN THE WORLD to work together towards set educational goals that have been constructed independent of real local input. That's totally fascist! All the teachers are supposed to subvert their cirriculum for the 'good of IB' and conform and use regulated cirriculums, and the common man (student) has no say in it whatsoever. There's more to this but it would take up too much space. |
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| Excited |
[Jan. 20th, 2007|12:13 am] |
I gotta post this cause it's actually pretty cool (I think so anyway):
People are actually sort of competing to get me to coach for them. Myles Wagner from Coon Rapids offered me $3100 for a debate season (late aug-dec basically). Then Daryl Pinto from Blake talked to me today and said I could earn around $3100-3500 working for him AND Jess Bailey from Edina said she would match that offer because I confided that I would rather work with her and Jake Gelfand than with the Blake program which is sort of dying.
I feel a little guilty cause I might be a terrible coach or whatever, and sometimes I have tremendously bad ideas that I need to be disabused of, but I told them that and they insisted that they still wanted me.
If I worked for any of them it would tie me down to the Twin Cities area, but I don't mind that too much, and nothing has to be decided yet. I'm gonna see if I can get a summer job coaching at a debate camp so that I can have a warmup before I coach as a job. |
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| Tragically uneventful |
[Jan. 16th, 2007|08:30 am] |
I am in school, I'm just typing from Library TA. Sheesh.
I don't have anything to say, honestly. Highschool life is fairly boring. I really like reading about everyone else though. I don't always comment, but I like hearing from everyone.
I know it's hard being apart, but the way I think of it is sort of like when everyone's away it's sort of one thing, and whenever we're together it's another. Almost like two different lives although that makes it sound weird. It's just different. And we can't help that sometimes we're apart we just sort of have to focus on the things that are relevant at the moment. When we're together that means seeing eachother and hanging out, and when we're not that means focusing on school and other friends and things like that. Sort of like taking care of two kids at once (maybe?). You focus on the one that needs your attention, but you want and need both to grow and be healthy.
So as of now, this (sitting here in school worrying about projects and speech and debate and some of my StP friends) is the life that needs my attention and I'll try to make the best of it I can.
That's how I try to think about it, maybe it will be helpful to someone else. |
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| At this point... |
[Dec. 19th, 2006|02:38 pm] |
Well, I think everyone who might read this knows already so I'm sort of just posting because it seems odd not to have SOMETHING up. I was gonna update my LJ to tell people last night, but when I realized how fast the word had spread I deemed it superfluous(POTC word).
David is hurt, understandably. We had an agreement to date if I didn't find someone by New Years. The world is a cruel place, to force me to make that kind of decision. Greta or David.
:P
That emoticon sort of annoys me. But at the same time, it seems entirely appropriate.
By the way, Landreau is going to be my official staff person for when I host swing lessons in the auditorium on Thus. afternoon for speech/debate swing night!! I hope I can get her to teach me some new things. |
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| Umm... |
[Dec. 12th, 2006|04:08 am] |
I'm busy as hell and want it to be winter break for I don't know how many reasons. But I also want to do well at Blake. I want it to be Blake (with work already done), do well, and then it be winter break. Without all this silly history project and music quiz nonsense inbetween. I'm doing pretty well esp. these last few days.
I'm trying to think of what else to say, but there's not really much. I've been thinking a lot these past few days intermingled with seeing people (always nice), and I think for once I may have actually gotten somewhere new. That's sort of exciting, because for me, I always tend to think in circles. So even if this is just a new AREA of the circle, I'm excited. |
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