Dear WGU,

Why do I have to use a facilitation cycle based lesson plan format when everything else about this program is pushing NCTM Principles and Standards methods? They’re kind of the exact opposite of each other. This makes no sense.

kthxbai,
Avrila Klaus
Class of ’12 (or so)

I was in for an English teacher today who put “defenitely” both in her notes and on the board where the kids would see it.

And we wonder why…

I cannot go shopping without being smacked in the face by waves of red and pink stuff.  Seriously.  I’ll grant that it bothers me less this year, because it’s no longer calling me a loser.  It’s always nice to feel a little less inadequate.  But it still bugs me.

The commercialism is, in a word, obnoxious.  I don’t know anyone, with the exception of teenage (or teenage-mentality) girls who like having money spent on them, who disagrees with this.  Many people say, though, that other than the commercialism it’s not that bad.  I thought about that, and I thought about what there is other than commercialism; I found that, when you scrape the commercialism off, you find that the core of the holiday is basically about being nice to the person you’re dating or whatever.

Well…being nice to the other person in a relationship is not a bad idea, sure, but I still wondered, what about the other 364 days?  Being nice to someone one day a year really doesn’t sound like a great relationship.  If you need a holiday for that, you’re either with the wrong person or you are the wrong person.

Oh well.  Million percent off chocolate on the 15th.

Teresa posted an update on her budget stuff, so I figured that since I started this whole thing, I probably should do the same.

Um…yeah, heh…not doing great on this.  I haven’t had red numbers in the bank account, at least.  But barely.  Having tires, rent, and urgent care for the thing-in-eye removal (grrrr…) come out of the timespan of one paycheck kind of killed me.  I’ve been trying not to dip into the student pay for routine things, but I had a couple really bad paychecks around winter break (this is kind of normal, unfortunately), and some piled up bills to take care of, so I’m not quite broke until next paycheck (Friday) but I’m within throwing distance of it.

Other than the major “stuff happens” expenses…it is way too easy for me to fall back into the habit of eating out.  I grew up on burgers/tacos/pizza because my mom rarely cooked.  I started doing better at the beginning of college, but when I moved into the dorms, I got used to the chow hall, because I didn’t have a kitchen and it was right there.  I don’t mind cooking in and of itself, but part of the problem is that cooking for one kind of sucks.  Especially the amount of time it takes; it seems to generally take longer to make a meal than to cook it, which is a pain, since I have other things I’d rather be doing if I had a choice.  However, the fact is, even cheap takeout is killing my budget.  So…I need to not do that.  (Darn cheeseburgers for their excessive addictive awesomeness.)

A few days ago I got a little piece of something in my eye.  It would not go away.  Even the superfancy eyewash-solution-and-eyecup kit from Fry’s Grocery didn’t get it out.  I was starting to think it was pinkeye that somehow got noticeable suddenly for some reason, but last night, I found it in the mirror.  If I had three hands, I could’ve just taken care of it right there.

Today, I went to one of those clinics in a drugstore, figuring that little dumb stuff like that would be right up their alley.  Nope.  Apparently fishing stuff out of someone’s eye requires a special lens, numbing drops, and huge q-tips.  Person there says go to emergency room.  I say no money.  I neglect to add “and wtf, it’s a piece of junk in my eyelid, not a ruptured spleen, I’ll hold it open if you’ll reach in and grab it, or the other way around if you’d rather.”  The suggestion changes to an urgent care clinic; he gives bad directions, I get lost on the way, and find a different location of the same chain.

I sign paperwork, wait, give health history and current symptoms (I thought “stuff in my eye and it kind of hurts and itches” was self-explanatory, but they needed me to go through this whole checklist…I’m hoping the checklist was standardized for everyone, because otherwise, they actually thought that “gas with oily discharge” might be related to that…), wait, pay the bill, wait, get blood pressure and temperature done, wait.  Eventually, the doctor-or-reasonable-facsimile comes in and holds my eye open, I look in the other direction so the piece of junk shows better, and the medicreature picks the thing out.  (Note: no special lens, numbing drops, or superextrafrackinglong q-tips were involved; drugstore clinic could’ve done the same thing, sooner and probably cheaper.)

For this, I earned the privilege of paying $130.  Yay for being uninsured.  I should’ve gone into some kind of medical stuff; for $130, I could throw paperwork at people, make them wait, and pick things out of their eyes too.

Yes, I know, it’s been a while.  Like January actually got skipped over; a month getting skipped hasn’t happened since I set up WordPress.  Life is crazy and stuff.

Most important update is that, against all the odds (I don’t know who was running the family betting pool on this one but I’m sure a lot of people lost money on “never” ), I found a guy who has the ability to put up with me.  Thomas and I had been friends for quite a while–since I was back at WOU, in fact–and we decided, while he was here one weekend, to try out not being “just friends” any more.  Long story short, I can see this working.  Things seem to be going well so far, with the exception that geography sucks because there’s too much of it in the way because I’m still in the Phoenix area and he’s in east Texas.  I-10 needs to fold up a bit.  Something is in the works to correct the geographical problem but I don’t want to jinx it.  In the meantime, three-day weekends are useable if we meet halfway or so, and at least the schools here have at least a three-day weekend every month or so (although the last one went to waste because I didn’t have road-trip-worthy tires on the car, grrrrrr).  Anyway…if I’m gone on a weekend, that could be why.

In other updates, I had a two-week job, last month; I thought it was going to turn into more, because the teacher I was in for was going to need more time to bounce back from being in the hospital, and things were going fine considering that I was out of my field, but apparently they decided to swap me out before I started making long-term sub money.  Ah, yay, bureaucracy.  I miss that job; the kids were decent human beings, and it got me out of spending every night hitting refresh on subfinder.

Also, happy new year.  Woooooooooooooooo 2009.  I didn’t bother to make any resolutions: I never actually follow them anyway, so it’s easier to just not pretend.

I got promoted at last night’s CAP meeting; this blog post is being written by Squadron 308′s newest 1LT.  Which is pretty cool.  Unfortunately I couldn’t get the epaulets put on because Vanguard still hasn’t gotten my nametag back to me so I couldn’t wear the shirt with the loops for that.  So that’ll probably be taken care of next promotions night or something.  Pics to follow.

I found out how expensive tires are, even at Costco.  Yes, used is probably cheaper, but I needed all four, reasonably matched, and a good used set of four tires for a specific car is hard to find, and I didn’t want to waste more money on “meh, good enough” replacements for blowouts while I searched (or, for that matter, more three-day weekends).  So I ordered new and said goodbye to a week’s pay.