Sadie is Senile

Sadie is my not-so-reliable, yet faithful, companion. I've had her since my senior year of high school, and though we've had our ups and downs, she's still, miraculously, there for me. We had a nice bonding experience over vacation. On my drive up to Bangor last Monday she suddenly decided that she was getting a phone call and turned off the radio. The display said "CALL" and I couldn't do anything to turn it off. Sadie has been in the family for over 10 years and in that entire time she has not had the car phone that she was manufactured with. So for her to suddenly think she was getting a phone call was strange. I had completely forgotten that she even had a car phone once upon a time. It was really annoying driving without any music, and I still had at least another hour before arriving at my destination, so I pulled over and tried to figure out what was going on with poor old Sadie. I turned her off, but the display stayed on, so I waited a while and in the meantime tried searching Google for a solution to my problem. This was how I learned that she thought she was getting a phone call on her missing car phone. Eventually the display turned off, so I tried starting the car again and I had music! Hurrah! Or so I thought. I got on the interstate and kept driving and it wasn't even 5 minutes before "CALL" came back on the display. Frustrated, but not willing to pull over, I kept driving. I drove the rest of the way to Bangor without music--longest drive ever. 

I didn't drive my car anywhere while I was in Bangor, and the display never turned off, so by the time I was ready to leave a few days later, my battery was dead. Go figure. We jumped my car and she still thought she was getting a call on the car phone that she didn't have. So I drove all the way back to Farmington without any music. All the way back. Without music. It was pretty much torture. All I had to keep me company was the sound of the wind trying to blow my car off the road. When I got back into Farmington I was going to switch cars with my mom so that I wouldn't have to worry about a dead battery at work, but after I changed and got ready to go switch cars, I looked down at the hole where the car phone used to be ages ago. I saw what looked like a wire, so I went to pull on it and as soon as I touched it, my music came back on. All it took was touching the wire sticking out to make my music come back on. Of course that couldn't have happened before I left Bangor, no, it had to wait until after I got back to Farmington. 

And now she's making a terrible dragging noise some of the time while I'm driving, like there's something dragging on the ground, but of course I can't see anything wrong with her. Oh, Sadie. Always keeping me on my toes. At least the radio fix didn't cost me any money.

15 minute free write (or rather 5 minutes at this point)

Having two jobs is not where I expected I would be at this point in my life. Not that I really mind, because I do like being able to pay my rent and buy food, but some days I really wish that I only had to have one job. One job that I could go home from at the end of the day and relax. Not two jobs where I have to go home and then get ready to go to the other job. Don't get me wrong, I love both of my jobs, but days like yesterday make it incredibly difficult to enjoy them. Yesterday was a migraine day. I taught all day with a migraine, which wasn't as bad as it used to be now that I've learned some techniques to deal with my migraines. But then I had to go to Big Lots and stand at a register for 6 hours. With a migraine. And pretend to be cheerful, when all I wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. What made things even better was that I wasn't the only one who was having a rough day at work yesterday. Tena's foot/back are still giving her problems, so she has to take more breaks than she likes to, more breaks than she really can as an assistant manager. Trixie did something to her leg, so she was limping around, too. And to top it off, Rob, our District Loss Prevention manager, basically a really important guy, had to come to the store to fix something that was wrong with our computers. Rob's a nice guy and all, but knowing that he's coming to visit puts us all on edge. I wish it had been Jeff instead of Rob that came, but luckily Rob only stayed for an hour or so and spent most of his time in the office working. And he didn't stay until close so we didn't have to worry about him while we were doing our closing routine.

Reflection on Reading Reflections

While reading through blogs this weekend, I noticed that a majority of the reflections I was reading were actually just summaries. Then I realized that I never gave an example of a reflection and that my directions probably never said to stay away from summarizing the entire plot. Some summary is okay, but remember, I have read the book, too, so I have a pretty good idea what happens in the story. What I don't know, though, is how you felt about it, what questions you have, what you think might happen next. Those are the types of statements I'm looking for. It is totally okay to use "I think" in your reflections. You can also post images that relate to what you're thinking, or even songs, movie trailers, any type of connection you can make. See below for an example reflection on a book that I'm currently reading (sorry, not going to reflect on 451 for you!).

Reflection on Scarlet by Marissa Meyer:

In this chapter, Scarlet and Wolf arrive in Paris to look for Scarlet's grandmother. I still don't really trust Wolf...there's something shady about how withdrawn he is and how he avoids Scarlet's questions. What motive does he have for helping her find her grandmother anyway? He claims that he was not involved in her kidnapping, but the timing is a little fishy if you ask me. I think he is lying to her about something. And how he says that he is sorry right before they go into that building? What is he sorry about?

Scarlet keeps trying to convince him that she is fine on her own if he would just give her directions, but he refuses to abandon her. She wonders if she's leading him to his death, but I think it's the other way around. What if he is tricking her into going back to the secret headquarters or whatever it is so that his pack can kill her? I think that something bad is going to happen to Scarlet, whether it's Wolf's fault or not I don't know.

While Scarlet and Wolf were walking through Paris, Scarlet was describing some of the different things she was seeing, and some of them were really intriguing. For instance, the billboard that advertised a shampoo that changes with your mood! That sounds like it could be fun and useful, but maybe also dangerous. What if you could tell someone's mood just by looking at their hair color? Then you'd be able to tell if you made them mad because their hair would change color. Hmm, someone needs to create this for real...It kind of make me think of Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games and how she always has crazy hair colors.

Too Cold (15 minute free write)

I hate the cold. I really truly hate it. To me, cold is 40 degrees. I'm uncomfortable at 70 degrees, chilly at 68, and cold at anything lower. And then this morning I wake up and my phone tells me that it's in the negatives. -12 degrees. I think the weatherman is trying to torture me. My friend, who lives a little further north, sent me a picture of her thermostat that said -20 degrees. WAY TOO COLD. I can't wait to move south. Even in the south it doesn't get quite this cold. I can handle the cold of the south. I can even handle the heat and humidity of the south. The forecast for Charleston, SC says there will be a high of 66 degrees today. 66 degrees! In December. That's my version of heaven. I don't like having to wear ten thousand layers of clothes just to stay warm. My classroom is a balmy 68 degrees right now, which wouldn't be too bad, except for the cold air coming out of the vents that makes the room seem more like it's 62 degrees. I'm wearing leggings under my pants because I'm so cold. I don't think I can add too many more layers. By the end of the day, I will be wrapped up in my fleece jacket liner, for sure. Probably by 2nd period to be realistic. I need to find someway to trick the thermostat into blowing warm air into the room. I want to put cheese sticks over the air intake part of the thermostat so that it will think the room is a lot colder than it actually is. I just need to buy some cheese sticks...but it's too cold to go grocery shopping. All I want to do is go home and curl up in every single blanket I own. I have one, two, three, four, I think five, blankets on my bed right now. And a space heater that I run at night that sits right next to my bed. That's how cold my apartment is. I have a space heater downstairs too that I'll run when I'm in the living room. Some day, I will have an apartment that has really awesome heat so I don't have to worry about being cold all the time. But if(when) I move to SC, I won't have to worry about the heat as much. My poor apartment right now is struggling to stay warm, just like me. At least the heat in this apartment is actually on. I can't imagine how cold my old apartment would be on a day like today. When it got really cold at my old apartment, the heat wouldn't even come on at all and I had to rely on the heat from the apartment below mine. Sometimes I would turn my oven on and just run it without baking anything because it heated my apartment up. My electric bill wasn't too bad then. I also ran one of my space heaters, and that's what ate up my electricity. But I will pay to be warm. I don't care. Big Lots is really cold too. I'm glad I don't have to work there today. I can't imagine how cold the front of the store is, even with that dinky little space heater running. It's pretty sad that the three places I spend the most time in: my classroom, my apartment, and Big Lots are ALWAYS SO COLD. I feel like I will never be warm again. I'm just going to live in my Spandex leggings and my flannel shirts...underneath all the other layers of course. It's a good thing I'm subbing right now because I can almost afford my electric bill...

Time to go look for jobs in the Carolinas...maybe something will be available in March or April and I can just go after I finish teaching here...

10 Things About Miss Ferrari

1. I am cat-momma to boy cats. Their names are Hickory and Dickory. Sadly, I do not have a pet named Dock. Hickory and Dickory are enough trouble just the two of them. Dickory likes to play fetch with his toys and Hickory used to climb into ceilings--he probably still would if I would let him. They won't drink out of a water dish (we're working on this) and they get into everything, but they're pretty good bug-catchers, so I keep them.

This is Dickory. Isn't he a handsome fella?

This is Hickory. He likes to sleep in the sink.

2. When I'm not teaching, I work at Big Lots. I've been working there for over a year now and even though it's not my intended career, it's still a pretty awesome job. If you're ever shopping at Big Lots and you see me, feel free to say hi, but please do not ask me questions about homework assignments. If you're lucky, you might even catch me singing and dancing to the store's radio station (after the Christmas carols end)!

3. I am mildly obsessed with The Walking Dead. I even have a Walking Dead lunchbox. If I can find a way to work TWD and/or zombies into class, I will.

Some of my many books.

My most recent book purchase.

4. I love books. Buying books, reading books, taking pictures of books, talking about books, giving books, receiving books, writing about books, I like it all. If someone recommends a book to me, chances are I'll read it eventually, but it may take awhile for me to get to it. My goal is to read 50 books by the end of 2013. As of right now I've finished 37...let's see if I can make it to 50! My favorite genre to read is YA and I especially enjoy authors such as John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, Libba Bray, and Markus Zusak. If you've read a book lately that you think I should check out, let me know!

4. My dream is to one day move to New Zealand where I will live on a sheep farm and teach English to the Maori people. My backup plan is to be a stewardess for Air New Zealand. One way or another I am determined to get to New Zealand. Check out the super awesome time lapse video of New Zealand:

5. I hate winter and I hate being cold, but I do like the magical quality of fresh snow. This will hopefully be my last winter in Maine for a while, so I'm going to try my best to enjoy it. You can enjoy winter from inside, right?

6. I LOVE chocolate. My top three favorite kinds of chocolate are Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Peanut Butter M&Ms, and Peanut Butter Snickers. Notice a common theme? Apparently chocolate and peanut butter make me very happy. 

7. I have been an unofficial member of the Mt. Blue English Department since September 2007, first as a teacher's aide, then an intern, then a mentor, a practicum student, a student teacher, and finally as a substitute teacher. Some of the English teachers I've worked with don't even work at Mt. Blue anymore! Basically, I've been practicing this whole "being a teacher" thing since I was a Junior in high school.

8. For three summers while I was in college, I worked at Verso Paper in Jay. For my first two summers there, I worked in one of the dirtiest, smelliest, most dangerous areas of the mill testing chemicals to make sure that everything was working properly. Even though some of the things I had to do were scary and sometimes pretty dangerous, I really enjoyed this job. I worked with some fun people who made the 12 hour shifts bearable. My last summer at the mill I worked in the storeroom. Think of a giant hardware store, like Home Depot, except our stuff was spread out among different warehouses. The mill workers would put in an order for what they needed, and I was one of the people responsible for filling their orders. It was a BUSY job, but I again had awesome coworkers who made everything fun.

This is a picture one of my coworkers drew of me. Looks just like me, right?

9. I love going to concerts. Concerts I've been to include: Grace Potter & the Nocturnals (x3), Journey and Foreigner, Journey and Pat Benatar, Girl Talk (x2), Streetlight Manifesto and Reel Big Fish, Snoop Dogg, Keith Urban, and America.  

This is about one-third of my collection...

10. I collect nail polish. I have around 200 different colors, but I hardly ever paint my nails. I don't have the patience to sit still long enough for them to dry, so when I do paint my nails, they usually get smudged within a few minutes. But I still like to buy new bottles.