Watch kids take a test.

Yell at seventh graders. Again.

Phone goes missing and gets across campus (I tracked it with Bluetooth from the laptop a bit) but never quite turns up. I find out how to suspend it to keep from having to pay for calls to China.

I get a refund for a book that I bought off Amazon and never got because they used a type of shipping where it was returned instead of forwarded. I provided an updated address before the book shipped, and they said they’d be in touch if it was returned, and they weren’t until I asked for an update because it had been two weeks. I got 39 cents back, they got to keep $3.99 and the book. Now I’m impressed with their customer service.

I get a year older; 24 now. I wasn’t even really used to 23–it was already just a little bit older than I thought I could ever be–so this is going to be interesting to try to keep track of.

In short…woooooooooooooooooooo…

If I’m in heavy traffic and there’s no passing lane, I will not be able to speed up to make you happy.

If you keep tailgating, I’ll slow down 5 MPH. It’s called leaving enough stopping distance to not be middle car in a pileup if the car in front of me has to stop.

If you keep tailgating more so that the grill of your Compensator is the only thing in my rear view mirror, I’ll slow down another 5 MPH. I can do that all day. Obviously it bothers you more than me.

If you pass me as soon as the lane splits and makes a passing lane, you might not believe this but I really have no problem with that. Unlike you, I have nothing to prove as long as you’re not trying to push me around.

If you have your front passenger give me the bird, I’ll roll my eyes. Good for you, you have a finger.

If it happens again, I’ll do the exact same thing. If you drive like a normal human being, on the other hand, we can both drive with the flow of traffic. You pick; my car has air and a radio, so I don’t care which.

Playing with a MySpace profile made my sister think she knew web coding, when she didn’t even know what I meant by FTP.  She’s on the real internet now, let the reeducation begin.

Now that the WGA strike is over, shows other than reality TV are going back into production. We won’t be doomed to an eternity of Are You Smarter than the Girl who Wants to Marry a Bajillionaire? crap. YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!! Among a laundry list of shows that I don’t care about (I just don’t get into most stuff any more…in fact, I don’t even bother to watch most stuff any more), House is coming back on April 21 at 9 PM. Note the timeslot change–it’s on Mondays now, contrary to House’s line in a recent episode to the effect that broadcast TV would be good enough to watch on Tuesdays. At least it’s not a Friday Timeslot of DOOOOOOOOM.

While I’m on the subject*, what’s up with TV these days? I mean I get that TV networks would go broke if they planned their entire lineups to appeal to the IQ range that my friends and I inhabit, but on the flip side, all this crappy reality TV exists for two reasons: it’s cheap to make and it’s freaking insanely popular with The Masses. So, it would be nice if they would at least use those cheap profits to pay for the production of something of value…although really it would be more of an investment than a subsidy, since over time smart programming will earn more than Reality crap. Do the math…a Survivor season (whatevertheheck it’s called) can run each episode maybe 2-3 times, and then the tapes are worth their weight in film. Shows that can stand up to repeated viewings and that last a few seasons so that enough episodes are made can keep making money forever. A constant trickle over a long enough time can add up to more than even a huge single burst. I could say it in statistics notation with an inequality, which would be cool because any geekery involving Greek symbols cannot possibly be less than amazing, but I’d need another Wordpress plugin for that.

*note: this means “Avrila’s been waiting to rant about this for a long, long, LONG time”

So, I say to…well, everybody, though mostly the TV studios…think long term. Long term wins in the long run, and the nature of time will put us all into the long run eventually.

I’ve tried two different brands in attempts to get rid of the blackhead problem across my nose (*mumble mumble* combination skin *mumble*); I don’t think it matters which brand you get.  My latest attempt was a brand that has a lady with perfect skin on the box, not that that narrows things down any.  Maybe they work only for people who already have perfect skin.

I’ve come to two conclusions: the irritiation from the glue makes the skin they’re stuck to oil up worse for the next several days (I’m still not sure how long this is going to last, grrrrrr), and their main mechanism of “cleaning” anything is forcing the user to really scrub the area to get the glue off.  I could get the same thing for a lot cheaper from a bottle of Elmer’s.

In short…ugh.  Don’t bother.

If you’re wondering about all the fun I had with MySiteSpace, click here to read the text of the actual tickets.

Classmate in online class: “This last year at school every time I turned on the computer it seemed as though I was not allowed to go to sight to so research for a topic on health do to the filter on the district server” (emphasis added).

Aside from the bold stuff, there should also be a comma between “school” and “every,” and between “computer” and “it.” And maybe an a before “sight” so that I don’t end up reading it with an accent.

This…genius…is finishing up a masters in elementary education and I believe still planning to go into teaching. AARGH!!!

Are university administrative offices inherently evil, or is it specific to all the ones I’ve ever interacted with? Two weeks ago, the stupid fracking Graduate Office told me that it wasn’t absolutely necessary for my degree plan change form to be turned in before they did the transcript audit associated with scheduling my portfolio presentation, because according to them the list of what courses I still need is a convenience for me, not anything they superdoublecheck. Today, after I e-mailed in my portfolio (dear lord I’m glad that thing’s done, I feel more clear-headed already, though that reflects on the baseline more than anything else), my program coordinator wrote back to say that the scheduling had never gone through…we compared notes, and the fact that the remaining paperwork wasn’t Priority 1 may’ve been the problem. I was flat out on other things and THEY TOLD ME THEY DIDN’T NEED IT THAT BAD, what do they expect?

My advisor lost one of my forms that I turned in to her back at the end of fall. I KNOW I turned it in–I specifically had my cooperating teacher fill it out at the end of fall term because I knew they were going to be asked for at the end-of-fall meeting. Naturally, though, none of this is my advisor’s fault…so as soon as I’m not flat out on other things, I’m supposed to hunt my cooperating teacher down and get her to fill it out again. This is holding up my licensure. I need my Oregon license in hand in order to apply for the Arizona license, which I need in order to get the job that I’ll have in a month…I’m gonna end up getting a sub license to cover the processing time, I think. Speaking of which, I need to sign and return the contract, maybe even pay extra for faster mailing; I haven’t had time to sit down and word-for-word read it but it’s got a deadline inside of a week so I think I need to just take the chance on signing away my soul.

And I’m behind in one class already because of spending almost all of yesterday on the portfolio. At least I don’t care if I end up with a B in pretty much everything. And at least Tech Foundations for Math Ed and Tech for Teachers are similar enough that I may be able to double-dip assignments with minor modifications.

And, a month from now this won’t be the last thing, it’ll be the first. I’ve given notice on my apartment and don’t have anywhere to move to. I called for an application a few weeks ago at my first-choice apartment but they never got back to me, so I may have to start over on trying to find a place with air conditioning that’ll take me and my three cats.

If so, I want a refund. I’m still approximately as tired and stressed out as I was at the beginning, and I spent most of it watching a cursor flash, trying to write this portfolio thing. Which still isn’t done. It’s getting closer by tiny steps, but…it should already technically be done a while ago by now…I keep telling myself that the portfolio isn’t worth stressing over, because it doesn’t even really matter if I don’t get my master’s right away since I can always come back next year. But I don’t want to be a failure…

I just need a nice easy summer term. I may get it as far as school goes, since the classes don’t look that hard and I can take them for a B if it comes down to that, but I’ve got license stuff and moving stuff and just a million things to do and no time and I feel like my head’s going to explode. Makes me wonder whether “year semi-off to sub” would’ve been the right decision after all since it’d be easier. But I’m so close, I’ve got the contract even, and I want to make it work.

I need a break. And I technically just had my only break until October. I know that I technically can, but, I can’t do this!

So…I told the seventh graders how they’re doing (yikes) and handed out Friday detentions, for more than three missing assignments, to over half the class…they’ve got until Friday to redeem themselves from that by bringing in three past due assignments.  I’ll probably still have a bunch.  BUT…the class’s average should bounce up a bit, from this…I hope.

Here’s what got to me: someone (I really didn’t see who, or recognize the voice since it was whiny) had the gall to ask why it was taking so long to get through the book.  Hellllllll-lo!  Maybe because I have to explain everything three times because people talk while I’m trying to give directions, and then “don’t get it” because they didn’t do the homework!  There’s just a chance that that has something to do with why we’ve been going at, pretty much, half-speed.

Today was better, at least.