Someone on eharmony is screwing with me.  There is this one guy who I’m “communicating” with (as in picking questions from a preset list to send back and forth for the other to answer) who I feel like cannot possibly be real.  This man is in my head, dude.  He knows too much.  From his profile to his answers to my questions, everything he writes is, well, perfect.  It’s exactly what I would have written or what I’d hoped to read.  We’re the same on the important things, and different in the little things, which I think is probably ideal.  So either this man is my one true love, or one of you guys totally made up a fake account to mess with my mind.  I shall be optimistically suspicious until I find out if he’s real, a clever ploy, or a serial killer.

4 year old boy: Um, Miss Cyndi …

Me: Yeah, Brian?

boy: Um, I went to the bathroom and I have poop in my pants.

Me: You went to the bathroom in your pants?

boy: Uh huh. 

Me: Ok, well can you go tell Miss Cassandra that you have poop in your pants?  I have to put back the bucket of dead octopuses.

boy: But I want you to help me.

Me: I can’t help you right now, Brian, I have to put the octopuses back under the tree for Miss Pam.

boy (quietly): But Miss Cassandra will be mad at me.

Me: She won’t be mad at you, just go tell her you pooped your pants.

boy: I want to come with you.

Me: No, you have to stay here, I -

boy: It’s a big poop.

Me: It’s a big poop?  Then go tell Miss Cassandra, she’ll give you new pants.

boy: … I’ll wait for you.

Me: Brian, just go tell Miss Cassandra that you have poop in your pants, I have to put the dead octupus bucket back.

Yes, my friends, summer camp is upon us.  Yesterday the older kids let the youngsters I work with sneak a peek at their science camp projects - dead octopi.  Some kids wouldn’t touch them at all.  Some kids rubbed an octopus all over themselves.  But either way, they all still poop their pants from time to time.

This last week was hard.  Really tiring and debilitatingly draining hard.  But I achieved a lot and I learned a lot from it.

Last week held the last day of the school year for my kids.  It was hectic, stressfull, and sad to say goodbye to the kids I knew wouldn’t be coming back next year.  But it also made my day.  A bunch of students brought in presents for me and the other teachers as thank you gifts for the end of the year.  I recieved hand drawn pictures from the kids (my favorite was a hand made paper “card” that when you opened it said “From Olivia” on one side and “I love you” on the other with pictures of hearts.)  I also recieved a myriad of gift cards, tidbits, a potted begonia plant, a chocolate and oreo crumb covered apple, and some cards, one which had possibly the nicest thing ever written about me on it: “Miss Cyndi - You have a wonderful heart and spirit that shines in all that you do.  Thank you for your energy and joy - you brighten our days!”  Now, I would have still thought this was great coming from a family that I had seen all year and interacted a lot with.  But I’ve only been there a few months, and while I’ve worked with the daughter a lot, I’ve only seen her mom for about 45 seconds in the mornings of the last few weeks of school, when I helped kids get out of the cars and into school.  So for a woman that I just met and barely see to write that card to me was really amazing to me.  And I learned that while this school year has been freakishly difficult in so many ways, I am appreciated.  I make a difference.  I am loved.

Last week on Thursday evening I discovered that the final I thought was due much later was actually due on Friday night.  In true me fashion, I had not started yet.  So I wrote the three page introduction to my topic and found a few sources that I could use for the next day in a couple of hours on Thursday night.  All day Friday at work I freaked out about it, since the final was due that night and I didn’t want to be up late, especially on this night - I had a dragonboat regatta the next day and had to be up at 5am!  I managed to sneak out of work a half hour early to get home and work on my final.  In about three hours (I took some breaks here and there, so there was 3 hours of actuall work spread out over 5 hours) I had 16 pages worth of material, and finished in time to watch the all new Doctor Who at 9.  Then I looked over my project again and sent it in.  Of course, who knows the grade I got on it (I’ll let you know when I find out), but what I learned once again is that I am capable of doing some really great things when I put my mind to it.  Because I’m lucky that even my half assed attempts at academic pursuits generally turn out looking somewhat wonderful.  So what I learned from this adventure is that I should stop freaking out when faced with a seemingly impossible deadline.  Cause I can do it.  I just need to actually get started and, well, do it. 

Last week I participated in the second annual Independence Dragonboat Regatta on the Schuylkill river.  Despite getting up at 4:45am to eventually discover that I had plenty of time and could have slept the extra 15 minutes, and the fact that it was a million and a half degrees outside, it was a fun day.  I was with some friends, there was food, shade, folding chairs, and a deck of cards.  Oh yeah, and a dragonboat regatta.  Last year our team’s best time for the 500 meter distance was 2 minutes and 55 seconds, and we finished 27th out of 29 teams.  This year we finished our final race in 2:39 to scoop up a bronze medal in our division, and we placed 19th out of 49 teams.  We were awesome.  But back to what I learned.  The day was stifflingly hot, I’d had not so much sleep, and the almost three minutes of each race was exhausting.  We raced three times, and with each run the entire team threw more and more of themselves into the race.  When our final race came, the race that decided if we would finally get a medal or go home with nothing, we all came to the same conclusion - you can do anything for three minutes.  Forget the pain, forget the exhaustion, hunger, and fact that you really have to pee.  Just paddle the shit out of that boat for three minutes.  And viola, there was our medal!  After being shafted last year by a lame categorizing system, it was finally ours!  From this day I learned that sometimes the things you want are really, really hard to get.  And sometimes you give up a little sooner than you could because it’s hard, and it hurts, and is it really worth all this trouble?  But if you just tell that little nagging voice in your head that says “quit” to shut the hell up, you can do anything.  For three minutes.

So last week was a tough one.  But it was a good one too.  I learned.  I grew.  I achieved.

I swear that I have actual stuff to write.  But this seemed like more fun at the moment.  I pirated this from the lovely Heather’s blog over myah.  She had a cool game where you type the answers to the questions into Flickr search and then make a collage from the pictures that pop up.  For a more concise explanation, here are the rules:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

I broke the rules by not making my thingie with that mosaic website, since I had already made this one up and was too lazy to redo it and make up an account with the website.  So this will have to do:

I think it’s pretty cool though the way it is, it’s very … me.

I stole this from Robin’s blog cause it looked fun.

The Rules: You highlight the things you can do and you leave in normal type the things you can’t.

Here I go:

1. Give advice that matters in one sentence.
2. Tell if someone is lying.
3. Take a photo.
4. Score a baseball game.
5. Name a book that matters.
6. Know at least one musical group as well as is possible.
7. Cook meat somewhere other than the grill.
8. Not monopolize the conversation.
9. Write a letter.
10. Buy a suit.
11. Swim three different strokes.
12. Show respect without being a suck-up.
13. Throw a punch.
14. Chop down a tree.
15. Calculate square footage.
16. Tie a bow tie.
17. Make one drink, in large batches, very well.
18. Speak a foreign language.
19. Approach a man out of her league.
20. Sew a button.
21. Argue with a European without getting xenophobic or insulting soccer.
23. Be loyal.
24. Know her poison, without standing there, pondering like a dope.
25. Drive an eightpenny nail into a treated two-by-four without thinking about it.
26. Cast a fishing rod without shrieking or sighing or otherwise admitting defeat.
27. Play gin with an old guy.
28. Play go fish with a kid.
29. Understand quantum physics well enough that he can accept that a quarter might, at some point, pass straight through the table when dropped.
30. Feign interest.
31. Make a bed.
32. Describe a glass of wine in one sentence without using the terms nutty, fruity, oaky, finish, or kick.
33. Hit a jump shot in pool.
34. Dress a wound.
35. Jump-start a car. Change a flat tire. Change the oil.
36. Make three different bets at a craps table.
37. Shuffle a deck of cards.
38. Tell a joke.
39. Know when to split her cards in blackjack.
40. Speak to an eight-year-old so he will hear.
41. Speak to a waiter so he will hear.
42. Talk to a dog so it will hear.
43. Install: a disposal, an electronic thermostat, or a lighting fixture without asking for help.
44. Ask for help.
45. Break a man’s grip on her wrist.
46. Tell a woman’s dress size.
47. Recite one poem from memory.
48. Remove a stain.
49. Say no.
50. Fry an egg sunny-side up.
51. Build a campfire.
52. Step into a job no one wants to do.
53. Sometimes, kick some ass.
54. Break up a fight.
55. Point to the north at any time.
56. Create a play-list in which ten seemingly random songs provide a secret message to one person.
57. Explain what a light-year is.
58. Avoid boredom.
59. Write a thank-you note.
60. Be brand loyal to at least one product.
61. Cook bacon.
62. Hold a baby.
63. Deliver a eulogy.
64. Know that Christopher Columbus was a son of a bitch. Your understanding of your heroes must evolve.
65. Throw a baseball over-hand with some snap.
66. Throw a football with a tight spiral.
67. Shoot a 12-foot jump shot reliably.
68. Find his way out of the woods if lost.
69. Tie a knot.
70. Shake hands.
71. Iron a shirt.
72. Stock an emergency bag for the car.
73. Caress a man’s neck.
74. Know some birds.
75. Negotiate a better price.

If anyone else wants to get on this train, then be my guest!

Hello all (six of you)!  I am still alive and kicking, although exhausted again.  But I think that’s pretty much a constant state at this point.  Plus I was sick again for a couple of days, which was awesome of course.  The school year is thisclose to being finished, which is fun, but a little sad since all of the good kids seem to be spending the summer in India or South Korea instead of summer camp, where I’ll be.  So I’m a little nervous that I’m going to be stuck in summer camp/daycare with only the horrible children, which would blow.  But anyway, as an end of the year present I gave all of the kids in my classes (42!) a little tub of play-doh and stuck a really cute poem that I wrote onto it about how it’s the end of the year and we had lots of fun and we’ll miss our friends but we’ll remember them and blah blah blah.  But trust me, it was cute.  And the kids loved it, which was nice.

Today I kept the rapt attention of some kids with a little magic trick out on the playgroud.  One kid had given me a cracked plastic bracelet that they’d found, and I astounded the kids by acting like I was magically putting the bracelet through my hand (I slipped the cracked bit over my hand and it looked like the bracelet was going through me - I’m sneaky!)  A couple of kids didn’t buy it, but a few just stared miraculously trying to figure out how I could put the bracelet through my hand and then get it out again.  The looks on their faces were hi-lar-ious!

Also in school news, there’s this one little punk ass kid that never listens to a damn thing any teacher says to him and acts like his shit don’t stink, to use some common phraseology.  And he has this “you can’t do anything about it” smile on his face that really, really, pisses everyone off.  I’ve always been creeped out by this kid’s smile.  Even when he’s not doing anything, his smile says “I’m up to something that you don’t know about.”  I was trying to figure out exactly why this kid was so creepy with another teacher, when I suddenly realized what this kid was.  He’s a velociraptor.  The one that looks you right in the face and holds your attention with a creepy smile while the others sneak around behind and kill you.  I told the other teacher my theory today and she was like, “Yes, that is exactly it!”.  But now that I’m onto this kid I’m going to be on the lookout for things sneaking up behind me when he’s around.

In other news, dragonboating has started again!  I had my first practice of the season this week and while the coach pretty much made us paddle full strength for the whole hour, it was fun to be out on the water again.  I’m looking forward to this year’s dragonboat regata in a couple of weeks!  I think our team strategy of “suck in the first round so we can be placed with the shitty teams and then beat them easily” will secure us a medal this time, since we was robbed last year.  Anyhoo, now that it’s the weekend again I’m off to sleep, watch some tube, and bust out some homework.  Hope you have a good weekend too!

I took the day off from work yesterday since I was feeling so crappy, but I managed to make it in today (although I did go in an hour late so I could sleep a little more).  I felt pretty groggy and out of it all day and tried to take it easy, but I’m still pretty exhausted right now.  However, I got a lot of hugs and excited children crying “Miss Cyndi!  Where were you yesterday?”  When I explained that I was very sick and stayed at home, they said, “Oh, well I missed you!”  So that was nice. 

Also, today I recieved a present from one of my students and his family.  He’s my favorite student (I won’t lie, I have favorites, but this kid totally deserves it - he’s sweet, polite, helpful, and always works hard, which is beyond rare for a 5 year old), so I’m always smiling at him and high-fiving him when he finishes his work.  But honestly, I do this with all the other kids too; I like to make them feel like they’re really accomplishing something important with their work, since they are!  And since the other teacher in the room is somewhat … horribly mean, all of the kids flock to me since I actually listen to them and care about what they’re saying.  Needless to say, I am the favorite.  Which I think makes the other teacher not like me that much.  But I digress.

So this wonderful student of mine brought in a present for me.  Since there are actually two Miss Cyndi’s at the school (I’m Cyndi and the other is Cindy), I’m relatively new so parents don’t know that I spell my name differently, and I wasn’t here yesterday, the present was accidentally given to the other Miss Cindy.  So today she told me that H had brought in presents for his teachers and mine was delivered to her by mistake.  During inside recess (it’s been raining) the other Miss Cindy brought me the present.  There was a cute bag filled with tissue paper, a few chocolates, a $10 IHOP gift card, and a thank you card:

The card read: “Dear Miss Cindy,  The care and your personal attention gave me that happily-ever-after feeling!  Thanks, H”  On the other side was a note from his parents: “Thank you so much.  Regards, P & D”.  I opened the gift in front of the other (mean) teacher, thinking that she had recieved something too.  She hadn’t.  When I told her that H had brought in a present for me that his parents had helped him with, she said, “Is it your birthday?”  “No,” I said, “It’s just to say thank you.”  I could tell that she was somewhat confused, since after all she’s the one that’s been with them all year and I’ve only been there a couple of months.  But hey, she’s a bitch and all of the kids hate her.  When she offered a kid a hug once, he actually refused.  On the other hand, I have kids literally throwing themselves onto me all day long for hugs.  When I came in this morning, a girl ran in from the other room towards me shouting, “Hug!  Hug!  Hug!”  So on the one hand it was a little awkard that I had a nice present and she didn’t, but on the other hand it was really cool.  I kind of wanted to be like, “Well, maybe if you weren’t a Nazi they wouldn’t hate you so much.”

So anyway, I thought that H’s present was totally awesome, and I thanked him, gave him a big hug, and told him that it was so nice to come to school to see friends like him.  He beamed.  I also picked up a thank you card on the way home to give to him and his family tomorrow, to say thanks for the, um, thanks. 

In other news, a guy who found our ad on craigslist was going to come by to see the house today.  But when I talked to him on the phone today he realized that the house was a bit too far away from where he needed to be.  He did however ask to meet up anyway at a nearby coffee house since he said it had been nice talking to me.  Crazy psycho freak?  Perhaps.  But he did seem nice on the phone, so I tucked my pocket knife into my pants (just in case!) and headed out to meet him.  I figured that worst case scenario I could just make up an excuse and leave, like - “Oops, I forgot to put money in the parking meter!” and then disappear.  But shockingly, he was really … nice.  And normal.  And I think I ended up on a date with him.  We talked really easily for a hour and a half, and it wasn’t wierd or awkward.  And we may be making dinner and dessert soon.  So … yeah.  It kind of took me by surprise, but it wasn’t unpleasant.  So I’ll let you know how that goes.

It was nice that even though I still feel like crap today, I had a good day.  I felt appreciated, valued, and loved.  And that can make almost any sickness a little bit better.

And I definately want to ride it all night long, baby!  The problem is, my car is getting, how you say, old.  It’s not falling apart, but it’s getting to the point where every year it’s costing me more and more to keep everything in working order.  Last year it was the brakes ($750), this year it was the tires and assorted engine maintenance ($1400).  So not much fun there.  The car will definately last me a few more years, which will probably be the earliest point that I have enough money for a newer car anyway.  And as my dad is fond of reminding me, it’s easier to pay for these types of repairs occasionally than buy a whole new car and have monthly payments.  Blah blah blah.  So I’ve resigned myself to keeping my current car for the immediate future.

You peeps may not know this about me, but I really like cars.  I like the look of cars, the noise, how they move, and of course, driving them.  I’m not super up on car maintenance yet, but it’s definately something I want to work on when I have the time and money to put into it.  Cause cars are cool.  For anyone who thinks differently, check out these cats:

See?  Cool.  So the other day I was looking around online at cars, just for fun.  To get an idea of what car I may want when this one is finally up.  For shits and giggles, I checked the price on my favorite car in the history of life, the Shelby GT500.  This is the 2008 model:

Purrrrrrrr.  Oh Carroll Shelby, the things you do to me!  Unfortunately, this beauty will cost me $50,000.  So I think I’ll have to keep this in the “dream on” category for now.  But it’s simpler version, a regular Mustang, only costs around $20,000.  Ka-ching!  Look for me in one of those in 5 more years!  (But it has to be one of the recent ones, from 2005 on, since they’re throwbacks to the ‘66 Bullitt type ‘Stang, which was by far the coolest and best looking version.  Although if I can actually find a ‘66 someday that would be heaven.)  I also looked up another cool car, the Camaro.  I enjoy Camaros, but only specific ones.  Like most cars, it had periods where it was, well, ugly.  Their revamping it for 2009 and the concept cars are looking pretty snazzy, so my $20,000 ‘Stang may have some competition. 

Since there are no current Camaros to check out, I looked for the older versions, specifically the third generation Camaro, which I think is the coolest.  And imagine my utter wonder when I came across this 1992 Camaro RS going for $5,000:

Gasp!  How hot is this car?!  More importantly, how awesome would I be in this car?!  This got me thinking, what if I sold my car (it’s worth around $6500) and bought this one?  I’d end up with about $1500 in the bank and be the coolest person ever.  Plus, in a few more years it will be a classic car, so it’ll be worth more the longer I have it.  Obviously I’d have to get the carfax report and have my mechanic check it out and stuff like that if I was seriously going to buy it.  Realistically, I will most likely not do this.  For all the reasons that come up including that it might need even more tune up work than my car now does and will therefor cost me more money in the long run, it probably gets bad gas mileage, yada yada yada.  But it’s something to think about, no?  I mean, come on, it’s a classic Camaro for Christ’s sake!

I haven’t worked up the ovaries yet to ask my dad his opinion, since he’d probably be the one helping me through it.  I guess I don’t want him to say that it’s a stupid idea.  If I don’t talk about it, then I can at least keep the fun idea in my head as a possibility, you know? 

To all of you who were concerned after my last post - I’m still alive!  Supposedly our landlord took our address off of his craigslist add, so I’m hoping that people won’t be showing up randomly at my house anymore.  Thanks for all of the support and checking up on me you guys!  In other not fun news, once again I’m feeling kind of sick.  Well, pretty sick.  Like, when I walk around I almost pass out and throw up at the same time.  So that’s fun.  The teachers at work keep saying things like, “Oh yeah, I was sick all the time the first year I taught, you just have to build up your immunity.”  Perhaps this is true, but it still pretty much sucks.  Plus the fact that I don’t get health insurance from my job doesn’t really help since it’s my job that’s making me sick.  I mean, I love those kids and they’re sweet and all, but everytime they grab my hands I cringe a little inside.  You would too if you were constantly being grabbed by sticky fingered kids who sneeze and cough into their hands and then don’t wash them after they go to the bathroom.

But, such is life.  At least this time it doesn’t seem to be anything serious, probably just a stomach bug that should clear up in another day.  Teddy’s been really good about staying by my side and taking care of me.  I swear that he thinks he’s helping when he pins me down to lick my face.  It’s like he thinks he’s cleaning my wounds or something.  It’s probably just adding more germs to my face of course, but I’ll take it as a sweet gesture all the same.  I’m hoping that this clears up by tomorrow, but either way I think I’ll be taking the day off.  Because every sick teacher deserves a bit of a break now and then.

I’m kind of afraid right now.  I think it’s because absolute strangers are calling me and knocking on my door.  We’ve been looking for a third roommate for a while now, and our landlord offered to help us put up some ads online and in other places.  Well, I stumbled across one on craigslist the other day.  It has a picture of our house, our address, both of our names, and our phone numbers.  On craigslist.  How creepy is that?!?!?!  Now complete strangers who have randomly found me on the internet are calling me and coming to my house.  This may sound wierd, but I don’t actually want strange men doing that.  And that’s exactly what’s happening.  I talked to my landlord today and told him to take the information off of the ads, and he said, “Oh, didn’t you want them to drive by first to see the place?”  And I was like, “no, actually we try to talk to people first and not give out our personal information to complete strangers.”

Twice tonight some guy has knocked on the door, but I didn’t open it because I was in my pj’s fresh out of the shower, and HELLO, freak stranger from the internet!  At my house!  Trying to come inside!  When I’m alone!  Luckily I had Teddy, who barked at the door.  Hopefully the wierdos will think he’s a ferocious guard dog and will back the fudge off.  But now I’m a little scared that someone could be hanging around the house sometime waiting to meet one of us.  Or worse.  Since seriously, the ad was literally - “two mid twenties girls looking for a fun roommate”, then with our address, names, and phone numbers.  How ridiculous is that?!?!  I mean, does our landlord want people to break in and rape us or something?!?!  Because that ad screams out “Hey freaks!  Come stalk us!”.  And that really, really scares me.