janestclair

Oyster crackers are definitely better than Saltines. I have no idea why either. While we're talking about tomato soup, I like Campbell's in the can. I hate all other canned soup, but the slight tinniness of can somehow adds something to the soup.

This is making me very glad I have a classroom and can shut my door. You still get coworkers coming in to chit chat, but if I had a cubicle with no walls? Forget that. It was bad enough when I had to share a room and things were constantly being moved from where I left them. It was a total power move too, because I'm very neat, and had one pile of papers on a giant demonstration desk, and it would ALWAYS be moved. This year, I don't have to share, so I'm pretty damn thrilled about that. Not so thrilled however that technology seems to be increasing rather than decreasing my workload. Parents can access their kids' grades 24/7, and yet we still have to do progress reports halfway through the marking period (now) AND call the parents of the kids getting less than a certain score. What exactly is the point? Plus they added a new website that we're supposed to post assignments on, and yet we still have to update our old websites as well, because the parents can't access the new one.

I'm glad it seems like Matthew wasn't as bad as they thought it would be. We went through Sandy a few years back and that is an experience I'd rather not have to repeat, nor wish on anyone else. What sucks is that all the idiots who didn't heed the warnings will all be like, "See?! It was nothing" and then the next time there's a dire prediction they'll ignore that too.

That's like those trees they planted freaking everywhere around here because they have nice white blossoms in the spring, but they smell like rotting fish. I drive past a bunch on my commute, and I have to roll up the window. I've met my favorite musician a bunch of times, and he's been nothing but fantastic every time. I have a couple great memories. Once was a in store performance and CD signing. So of course this whole thing is a cattle call, as these kinds of things usually are. Saying a few words to everyone, maybe snapping a picture. I get up there and he signs my CD, and I say thanks and am walking away and then he grabs my arm and pulls me back and we have a whole conversation. The only part I remember is he wanted to know how I already knew all the words to the songs because the album had come out that day, and I was like, "It's a good album, you should listen to it." We laughed. And then there was the time there was a whole lot of us waiting out by the tour buses, and he took a group picture with all of us, just because. That was pretty cool too. Mostly because there were at least twenty of those disposable cameras, so it took forever, and he had his arm around me the entire time. Heh. If looks could kill, I would've been dead.

That's funny, because at this very moment I am listening to Barenaked Ladies song, Box Set, and I just got to the lyric, "Heard my song in an ad for a bathroom cleanser - they say it's greed." What a funny coincidence. Especially considering I haven't listened to that particular song in ages. I don't necessarily mind remakes, but it is kind of annoying that there are so many remakes and reboots. X-Files reboot was worth it for one episode, maybe 2 out of the 6, and I'm ultimately glad they did it, but on the whole I don't think reboots are necessary.

lordonia, If you bleached it, it should be fine bacteria-wise. Bleach kills anything that can make you sick. I'd just wash it a few more times just to make sure there was no actual bleach left on the pitcher. If it was a plastic pitcher, you'd be surprised what sorts of bacteria and fungi can hang out and multiply in all the microscopic nicks. It could've been from the faucet, or even mold spores in the air. Over the summer I had a large flask of something that was sealed and left over one weekend in my classroom for a lab , and it was full of mold on Monday. Only took 2 days. I still have bleach sitting in it. You just reminded me I should probably clean that out. You do not want to know what sort of microorganisms are on your cell phone. In reality though, you are covered with critters, most of them harmless and protecting you from the ones that are actually pathogenic. We are actually 90 percent bacteria and only 10 percent human, cell-wise. There's your useless fact of the day.

I've gotten a few of those IRS calls too. And one other one, that I think wasn't the IRS but it said there was a warrant for someone's arrest in the magistrate court. Super heavy Indian accent, so those are the words I caught. Yeah, ok. This is the US - we do not have magistrate court. Morons. The good thing is my dad, while very gullible, can't hear for shit, and rarely answers the phone, and my mom worked for the IRS, so at least knows that one is a scam despite her short term memory issues. That's who they're hoping to get - elderly, gullible people. If I actually pick up the phone, I play along for awhile and waste their time. It's fun, and it's less time they can scam some other person. What makes it extra annoying is they spoof the number so it looks like it's a local call. Girl Scout cookies are $6 now?! Holy crap. Thin Mints are tasty, but not $6 worth of tasty. I always hated having to do the fundraisers as a kid, too. Asking random people to buy crap was not my idea of fun. Now my students ask me to buy stuff, and I use the nut allergy excuse, since it's mostly food items. If it's a T-shirt, I can't buy those either because they do not come in petite XS. Sorry kids.

That blouse was horrible, as were the white pantyhose she also wore in (I think) the same episode. Just no.

@StatisticalOutlier - that is amazing. I love it. I lost one of my favorite earrings today. This annoys me on two levels. One, I don't know when I lost it which means it's probably lost and gone forever. And two, how long did I walk around today with only one earring and no one said anything. WTF, people? Clue me in! We took ID photos today too, which means I possibly only have one in the photo. Awesome.

Also true in NJ. At least one county still has blue laws on the books, and some towns in other counties are completely dry. They do that to get more clicks and thus more ad money. It's infuriating, and if I see a slideshow, I don't even bother reading it. Same if a website won't let me view it without turning off my ad blocker. I guess I won't be seeing what's on your page, then. No big deal. Take malicious code out of ads, and I'll turn the blocker off. No Chik-Fil-A for me today. It's raining too hard to drive there. But I did get a jalapeno cheese pretzel from Wawa on my way home, which definitely hit the spot.

A few years back (think when the Razr was the coolest phone to have, before smart phones) all the kids had that ringtone. I could always hear it. They were always amazed. It sounds like a mosquito buzzing, kind of. It still does. I just looked up the sound, and can still hear it at 37 years old. I guess all those concerts haven't damaged my hearing yet. The same thing happened to me a few weeks ago, except it was fruit cocktail, and it had something in it called monk fruit. It was vile. Why can't they just put less sugar without adding some weird sugar substitute? They all read as bitter to me. I second your bleh. Splenda, Nutrasweet, stevia, and now monk fruit - I now need to avoid them all. Dannon Oikos reduced the sugar in some of their their Greek yogurt, and it tastes fine. They didn't add any weird sweetener to it.

I feel you. My dad has had hearing loss for as long as I can remember. Growing up, one of my great aunts did too. My mom is starting to lose her hearing now. The TV is always set to a loud volume, and I no longer have an indoor voice, since I'm so used to speaking loud to be heard. This is an advantage as a teacher though - my classroom is very long, and I have no difficulty projecting. Even the kids way in the back can still hear me. Not only that, but why do other people care? It doesn't affect your life if I find mayo vile and disgusting, and detest the taste of black pepper and rare meat. If I want to order my steak medium well, I'm going to order it that way. You don't have to eat it, I am. I don't need some food snob telling me I'm ruining it. I can taste the iron in myoglobin if the meat is still pink, and it is not good. Pretty much everything at Chik-fil-A is good. I get the spicy chicken sandwich with pepper jack cheese, and whatever they call that drink that has the lemonade mixed with ice dream that I'm blanking on right now. Oh - and buffalo sauce for the waffle fries. So good. Now I want Chik-fil-A, and it's Sunday. Damn.

I love beans. I could eat beans at every meal. I don't, because the E. coli in my gastrointestinal tract do not share this opinion. (Cue the bean song.) Lima beans; however, are an abomination. I never liked Brussels sprouts until I had them roasted. Now I think they're delicious. I've never used a fast food drive thru. I eat fast food occasionally, had a Wendy's frosty the other day in fact, but I've never gone through the drive through. Is that odd?

I always say my mental age is probably teens because I find stupid things funny, but I look like I'm in my early 20s. In reality, I'm mid-thirties, but my body already feels like I'm 75. I have way too many aches and pains.

If bananas aren't ripe enough, I get a headache. So they have to have at least a few flecks of brown on them before they're edible to me. I can't stand mango or papaya either. Mango tastes like a pine tree. No thank you. Honeydew melons smell like garbage to me. Sweet, disgusting garbage. I used to be ok with cantaloupe but now it hurts my mouth, so I stay away. I don't like them enough to suffer the mouth pain. I could probably make a significant dent in a whole watermelon if it was chilled. Yum. Room temperature watermelon is not good. Avocado is something I want to like. I keep trying it, and I can't get past the texture. On the plus side, it saves me 2 bucks in Chipotle. Ever have a donut peach? Those things are amazing, skin and all.

That gritty texture is part of the reason why I love pears. It can be so hard to find a good one in the store though, and the window for ripe and delicious is very small. Sometimes, I'll resort to canned pears because at least those are soft, and I know what I'm getting. The Jelly Belly pear flavored bean is my favorite because it tastes like pear, and it has that grittiness to it. Love. I'm a food purist. I like my coffee to taste like coffee. I like my cheesecake to taste like cheesecake, unless we're talking about lemon or ricotta cheesecake, then an exception can be made. Wow. The stupidity of that statement burns, much like poison ivy would.

It's the same thing in public schools, at least in NJ. You can be removed from your job if you have poor evaluations for two years without any sign of improving. Tenure is not a job for life, it's just a little bit of security so you know they can't end your contract because the kid of someone on the board of education needs a job. That teacher sounds terrible and reminds me of my college calculus teacher who wouldn't let us take notes during class. He'd come take your pencil. "No write! Just listen!' Ok, but I can't understand what you're saying through your accent so I'd like to write it down and figure it out later. I used to bring a supply of pencils so that when he took one, I'd have more. We all did. He was the worst.

And isn't most canned 'pumpkin' not actually pumpkin, but some other squash? I love me some coffee, but I want my coffee to taste like coffee, not pumpkin spice.

Does anyone even really want pumpkin waffles, pumpkin cereal and pumpkin marshmallows? Someone must, but it's definitely not me. I have one serving of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving dinner and I'm good.

PBS in the NYC area isn't even finished airing season 6 yet. We're way behind.

If it's a standardized test, that is for sure a requirement. We are given brown bags for them to put their names on and phones in (turned off) and they're kept at the front of the room until we collect all the test materials back again. The last test I proctored, we also checked for smart watches. In my classroom for a regular test, I make them turn it off and put it on the floor under their seat so I don't have to deal with collecting them, and then someone taking the wrong phone. There's a headache I don't need. We do have a BYOD policy at my school, so there's not much we can do about them texting during class really, except again, I tell them to turn it face over on their desk unless we're using the internet, or they've finished their work for the day. Then I don't care. If I'm teaching though, I can't stand it when they have their cell phones out and are texting. Unfortunately, there aren't too many consequences handed out from administration, so it's not worth writing it up, which they know. So there's my peeve: toothless discipline policies. I hope this year is better than last. Last year the inmates ran the asylum. We have some new VPs this year, so maybe it'll be better. I can dream.

I am guilty of that on occasion - not the "like" thing though. I blame it on being around teenagers all the time. So long as I don't pick up their slang, I think I'm alright. I will never refer to something cool as "lit" no matter how long I live. At least, I think that's what lit means...

Don't get me started on hair. My hair has been thinning for the past 10 years. Female hair loss runs in my family, although both my mom and my grandma started losing hair much later in life than I did. Lucky me. I used to have super thick hair you could barely get a brush through. When it started falling out, the only way I could wear it was up in bun if I didn't want to be covered in my own hair by the end of the day. Now, it's thinned enough that the only way I can wear it is in a bun. But oh, the gray ones? Those never fall out. They just stick straight up in the air, mocking me. The texture of my hair changed too. I hate it. I almost wish it would just all fall out so I can buy a wig and be done with it. But on the other hand I can't even stand wearing hats. They make my head feel claustrophobic. Yes, I am weird. So a wig would probably not work out. Thank god I live in the northeast. People don't ask about what your religion is. I was was raised Catholic but haven't stepped foot in a church in over 10 years, and I'm pretty sure that was a funeral mass. I think my parents knew I wasn't going to be into religion when I asked at 5 years old, 'If God is everywhere, why do I need to go to church to pray?" We also get all sorts of religious holidays off school, so that's nice - Christian, Jewish, and (for the first time this year) Muslim. If any of my coworkers (or anyone really) asked me what my religion was I'd probably tell them to stuff it.

And remember how much you hated taking naps as a kid? I freaking love naps now.

Not exactly the same, but I'm a teacher and everyone and their father (including my own) has an opinion on teaching. How easy it is, how they could do it no problem., how bad teachers are what's wrong with education today. On and on and on. I think because everyone's been in a classroom they think they have a clue. They do not. If teaching is easy, you're doing it wrong. When I started, there were 8 people who started in the same department as me. 5 of them were what was considered alternate route, meaning they came straight from industry and were doing the education credits at night. Of those 5, only 1 made it to year 2 and is still a teacher. It's demanding physically and mentally. In addition to teacher, I also have to be a counselor, clerk, custodian, IT, and copy machine repairman if I want to get anything done. I get 23 minutes per day to shovel in my lunch OR use the restroom, there's no time for both, so I almost never sit and am a champion bladder holder. You're dealing with 100 kids all of whom have different issues and need a different approach, all while conforming to idiotic standards and prepping for a bullshit test. And to the people who say to quit bitching because we get July and August off, bite me. I am grading lab reports from summer school as we speak. Then I'll take maybe a week before diving into prep for next year. So no, I do not get 2 months off. What I get is 2 months without a paycheck, unless I pick up a summer job. That whole rant should probably be in the work thread. Hah. I'm a little salty today. NJ decided to adopt the PARCC test as a graduation requirement, where basically every other state went the other way and dropped it.