Apparently this is what I look like when I am throwing up in front of hundreds of people!

Who: Mr. Rockwood and I eating Alkaseltzer and Sprite.
What: The Spirit Bowl
When: February 2008
Where: The Lion's Den
Why: I have NO IDEA!



I promise I had NO IDEA these photos were being taken of me. So attractive, I know. I tried not to look ridiculous, but what can you do? I tried to hold it in and then I just--exploded!

Count your many blessings!

I have a really good friend in my ward, that none of you know, so don't worry, who just finally told me last night about her divorce. I didn't know she was divorced, that she was married for 3 years to a man that had lied about having a pornography problem, and then destroyed her life and their marriage over pornography and cheating. This girl is amazing, and I can't believe some people have had such hard things to go through, but it just made me realize I need to stop being in the little pity party I have been in for the last week or so and count my many blessings.

I have a very good father who has always been a righteous priestood holder and a wonderful, faithful mother. I have good siblings and a stable home life. It is true I am not married, and gett'n up there, but I have not had to worry about a husband with a pornography problem and all that brings with it. I don't feel like I am any better than this friend of mine, by any means, but I do feel very blessed that albeit I am still single, I have not had to go through what she went through.

I know none of us are devoid of the possibility of serious trials in our lives or the possibility of family members struggling with serious sin, but I feel, (a) really blessed this morning, (b) renewed in my desire to stay away from the evil things of the world and do all I can in the future when the opportunity arises to be a righteous mother who does my very best to raise good children in a hard hard world!

Love Stories

Take the Quiz here!

Not inspired by, but strangely coincidental with Scully's post on the fantasy love affairs in Austen novels, I wanted to post on a similar vein.

I have decided my favorite drug is reading! I had today off from school and I laid in bed for 5 hours (ridiculously starting at 6 a.m.) and finished Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters, (thanks to for Scully for the Christmas present!)I read the last 250-ish pages this morning and finished with a feeling of contentment about life that I have not experienced in weeks. It has been a hard couple of weeks, and the secular-solution was reading a good love story. Somehow, when I read a good love story I feel like everything in life is wonderful, and that a million possibilites lay before me. And it must have worked, at least to some extent already because I talked to a cute guy after FHE for 20 minutes! Ha ha. Alas, it may just be the total relaxation into a world other than my own, but I love to read a good love story, be it Twilight, anything Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Gaskell, Hardy, Scott, whatever--it's my happy drug.

Too bad I can't spend every morning wrapped in warm blankets reading love stories!

Happy Valentines Day!

We got a foot of snow last night while I was in parent teacher conferences, and it is still snowing this morning! Happy Valentines Day!

A Pause to Vent

I am cold, tired, in need of a vacation, sick of grading papers, sick of students asking me why I'm not dating anyone, sick of hearing about V-day and it hasn't even happened yet, and sick of Parent Teacher Conferences! Why PHS has to have 4 PTCs a year, I don't know! I will be at the school tonight sounding like a broken record, "I'm sorry, your son/daughter is not passing my class because they are not reading Huckleberry Finn," until 8:30 p.m. tonight. I see on average 50 parents with students a PTC. Why?!?!?! Can't I just move to Hawaii or Mexico and not come back until summer time?

Side-Benefits

Okay, so teaching has its ups and downs that is for sure, but lately I have been realizing some new side benefits that I hadn't ever been warned about. I think it is so rewarding to help kids find their potenial and acheive their dreams. I helped one of my students edit and edit and edit and rewrite and rewrite and take the swear words out of, and edit again a personal essay he was submitting for a Reflections writing contest. He won! I just have to say he wouldn't have pre-edit-and-offensive-language-removal. Now, I am not taking the credit on myself, but we REALLY worked on it, and he had entered the writing contest every year for the last several years and he won this year, and was very, very proud of it! He is a hispanic-emo 17 year old, and he wrote about appearances and being misunderstood for his emo-ness, spanish descent, and the fact he is a teenager.

I have had a journalism student for the last two years who is a pretty good writer, but we've been polishing her up, a lot. And we just went to a journalism conference/competition on Friday at UVU and she won a $500 scholarship for her writing abilities! It was just really cool, knowing, again not taking credit, but we have been improving her writing~blood, sweat, and tears~for quite a while~.

I have written 7 lettters of recommendation now and have helped several students pass English class for the first time in years. You have to really take it as a compliment when kids say things, like my little cute-drugie-boy, "I don't why Miss E, but I just get something out of your class, I don't know why--but I do!"

Hmm, okay, I am miles away from some movie like Freedom Writers or whatever, but I am pleasantly suprised at how rewarding it really is, to know in a small way, you are making a difference in kid's lives.

p.s. Badly written post, don't judge, stream of consciousness:D

Sundance: definitely not a movie star!

Adventure #1: Being mistaken for a movie star. Question is, which one? So we are eating at Main Street Pasta and Noodle and this guy comes in with a group of girls and he smiles at me weird, and then looks at me and smiles at me weird, and I just smile back, confused. Then they sit in the table next to us and they keep turning around and looking at me, and it was just uncomfortable. Finally they realized I was not a movie star after eavesdropping and staring, and were REALLY embarrassed. The guy put his arm around his girlfriend and they didn't even make eye contact when they walked by again. Haha. It was embarrassing for me too--. I certainly don't look like a movie star, and have the pictures to prove it!

Adventure #2: Narrowly escaping going to a gay-zombie-porn movie. So, we were walking outisde the Egyptian theatre on Main Street and they were handing out free tickets to the movie premeir. There were three of us and they could only give us two, so we decided not to go in, but thought about it with regret--that is until we were on the shuttle and we ran into a couple we had sat by on the way in. They had accepted free tickets, and yeah--. Apparently it was a "social commentary" about how society doesn't accept "others" and was really a gay-zombie-porn movie, which most of our fellow Utah-ites and almost everyone in the theatre from who knows where, walked out of very, very quickly. *Whew* that was a close one!

Other than that, saw a guy from a boy-wearing-eyeliner-band and Jim Carey was supposedly there in this bar we didn't go in because the line was long, and well, it was a bar~.

It's Sweethearts Time Again!

It is time for Sweethearts! Bring back any memories? Who did I go to Sweethearts with in high school...Jared Roylance, John Galbraith, and I want to say Jason Little? But I can't remember if that was Homecoming or Sweethearts. Anyway! Here at my high school it is a girl's choice formal dance, and oh, the memories! I have several students going together and of course one girl who asked a boy in her same class pays *zero* attention to her after she asked him. Of course one girl asked one boy who used to be in our class and she is sooo anxious because he hasn't answered her yet and it has been 3 days! Maybe he didn't notice his name on the hearts plastered all over his truck? Of course one girl wants to ask another of my students who I kindly said, "there are better eggs in the batch than him!" Two of my students tried to get me to help them ask one of my other students to the dance and I was like no way! Am I going to be caught/seen plastering decoration all over one of my students cars/lockers!Can you imagine the rumors?! Anyway, happy and AWKWARD memories of high school dances, esp. girl-ask-guy!

Why is it so awkward when girls ask guys out? I know society is saying it is okay, but it sure seems like guys, at least high school guys, sure respond weird to girls asking them out! I think when guys say they like being asked out, it is that they would like to be asked out by their dream girl who may or may not exist, and when it's not, it's awkward! I don't know though, I'm not a boy, just a teacher who is secretly laughing and mourning over my students dating-choices. LOL.