9/19

I just put pizza in the microwave because I hate preheating the oven. The original plan was to eat the last peach Yoplait while reading "A Year in Provence" and feeling all continental-lunchy and healthful-like, but who's going to eat a glob of active cultures when there's pizza in the freezer? Apparently not me. Though the pepperoni slices were like little disks of leather. Though the crust was mysteriously unchewable. Check the box -- weight watchers?! Well, no wonder. Maybe it's a pretend crust. Maybe it's soy-peroni. Maybe it's really a frisbee. That's what I get for spurning my inclination to eat responsibly at least once a week.

Speaking of bad food, the subject line of the only spam I've ever been tempted to not immediately discard: Friend, you can grow taller -- at any age! Hotmail sucks. Letting crap like that get through and get my hopes up!! Wah. Getting e-mailed actual spam, now that would be worth the line noise and delays I have to put up with. It would kill my 14.4 modem, though ...

Alrighty, have you picked yourself up off the floor? Yes, I do this crap with a Hayes 14.4. I'd update more regularly if I had a decent computer and a modem not salvaged from some -assic period of pre-history. Ya, just like I'd run 10 miles a day if I had a treadmill in my living room.

Been to the library every day this week, though today it was just to pay my overdue fine. (And shame on me, I racked it up on someone else's card.) I borrowed this great book on Andrew Wyeth, a painter of ghostly and water-y images within Eastern U.S. landscapes. That was my stab at culture. I borrowed "Ramona the Pest" and some Baby-Sitters Club for the Divas, one of whom is Ramona-like while the other is an aspiring baby-sitter -- and ended up reading them all myself. That was my shameless inner grade-schooler needing a good read, too. I borrowed an NYC travel guide to plan a fantasy winter escapade. That was wishful thinking. Katie loaned me a Nora Roberts. That was fun.

*** October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and Sept 29 is the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure at Kapiolani Park. It was just my stab at community involvement and physical activity till I remembered that my grandmother struggled with this demon for years. She had it beat for a long, long time, but in '97 she died of relapse-related complications. So it's not just for my own personal satisfaction that I'll be laced up at 7 a.m. on the 29th. ***

The principal wanted to talk to me today. That was scary. Even though we get along great, she likes me, and we actually chat on a pretty regular basis, it's always scary to be pulled out the door by your boss needing to talk to you. First she gave me a brief state-of-the-state update, things like the overall budget and where my job came from in the first place. (Answer: overcrowding, which I may have already mentioned.) As far as one can tell, there will be no hiring of a full K teacher, on top of which, when the money for this position (and positions like it, statewide) runs out, we will be scraped off the platter and dumped in the garbage. (I just wanted to be colorful. It's not as bad as all that.) But she mentioned another possibility: I could teach the preschool class. Preschool means SPED, and this one is a specific demographic, which means ESLL. This again is contingent on space and other logistics.

I got turned down for a private school job just recently (actually I realized pretty quickly someone else had filled the emergency opening, but the school was courteous enough to eventually send a letter thanking me for my resume) but then I found out I needed that afternoon class at UH, so that worked out. The bad news is I'll still have that class till December and this new possible position begins next month, but the good news is that this detail is work-aroundable.

Ve shall seeee.