AAAAUUGH, MY EYES!!

It COULD be cute.
It COULD be cuddly.
But it is definitely not little.
It just might be ... a wookie!!!

Hello, Lex. Please, meet Lex. Lex is another internet dude that I have known for yeaaaaars. I think I met him in late 2000. Either that or early 2001. I am so such a chat n00bstern00bie. He is the person with whom I have interacted onlinedly second-longest (yay for garbled syntax, but I like it).

He is also like, a giant. The shortest in his family (aside from his mother) and he is freaking 6'5". Egads! *earthquake*

I also must say he is one of my favoritest people in the whole entire worlded and exceptionally considerate and just downright wonderful to me!! Lucky gf he has. :)

And I've been told that I'm terribly hard to impress! I think it might be true.

We arranged to meet up in London at MCDONALD'S!! WHERE THEY SERVE EGG MCMUFFINS AND HASH BROWNS! HASH BROWNS!! at Euston Station. But when I got there neither of us was particularly hungry so we didn't breakfast there. Nor did we ever, btw. Shame.

So we wanted to make the most of our daypass travelcard and decided just to wander around. I think we went to Portobello Road, first. And then Camden Lock - though by then the shops had closed. It's weird, they ACTUALLY close up tight EARLY on WEEKDAYS - like, 5pm!! When do working people ever get to do their shopping or anything??? Weirdness weirdosity.

So I bought him a little late lunch/very early dinner/probably should call it supper at a little Chinese takeout in Camden. I think it was curry. With some yellowy rice. I liked mine OK, it had a lot of red onions on it, which was nice. I think his was soooooooooo super hot and he couldn't finish it. Unheard of!! Lex! Not finishing foods!!

:)

Portobello Road is super cute and I think I wanted to go there because I have an antique fetish (maybe it's to offset my "young soul") and heard it was good shopping there. Lots of veggie vendors in the street.

And there WERE cute little shops, but I didn't get much until I hit the the holy grail of all that is cute and plastic and monstrously overpriced, especially for an American!!!

I don't generally use this phrase, and I do try to refrain from it, but I just have to use it now because the gush, it must ensue - OMG.

I love this store so much it can't even be explained. And I dropped a BRICK there, too. Ask Lex, he can explain. I must have spent 2 hours there. AND NOTHING WAS ON SALE! (Well, they were selling it, of course, so it was on sale, but nothing was less than full retail price. *shock* *horror* *to all my peepholes in the know about the Targeting*)

Salesgirl said it was designed and produced in France. I love love love nearly all of it. But freaking ridicularous, $30 for a place setting. (Which, unwittingly, after several watershed events later in the summer, I tried to take on the plane with me - yes. Sets of of cutlery. With, yep, you guessed it, KNIVES AND FORKS. MADE OUT OF METAL. Oh my frickin' whoops. But they let me take it and recheck it at the airline counter and thank goodness for thick sturdy shoping bags!!)

See?

And the Lex, yes, he can serve a purpose.

So they had really adorable purses, of which I got several (as gifts also :)) and just the neatest cutest little trinkets and kitschy stuff - pens, plastic dustpan and sweepers painted to look like a prince and princess, loads of bags - I think they said no photos but I'm sure I can find pictures of the kind of stuff somewhere!!

Golly, if you ever go to London, please stop by! I think I liked the one on Portobello Road the best. I later hit one at Covent Garden and it was severely underwhelming for all involved.

Man, I totally spent way too much money. But it's so fun. :)

I'll post separately about OCTOPUSMANIA some other time.

Speaking of other cute, little, cuddly creatures -

HERE IS FREAKING COUSIN WILLIAM!! And I like goofy pictures of goofy people, so sue me. :)

He like, didnt have a name for the first two months of his life or something. The fam kept asking when they were going to officially name him. Buuuuuuut they finally settled on something.

A quiet moment in his stroller. Yes, the paci is utterly indispensable.


Now panning out to see the fulllllllllllllll old-man-with-striped-pants-pulled-up-to-the-armpits effect that he tends to sport.

I like to call him Big Willie. Mr. Victor (Willie's brother) prefers Little Willie. I'm not sure that at this point it makes much of a difference.

He was a big reason why I wanted to go to Europe this past summer - I wanted to meet him!! He so totally will not even remember me, though, unless I happen to go every summer or unless he sees pictures or something. Then again, I never even met Victor until he was 15!

My cousin's cat!

Named Missy. Nice cat. Petted her once. Otherwise, didn't see her much.

The Royal Observatory at Greenwich

I probably would never have thought of going here on my own, but it was pretty interesting! Lots of astronomical history in this place, at least. They had rooms where the astronomers worked, old telescopes, stuff that I've never really thought about. Also, it's where Greenwich Mean Time is kept. Here's the entrance, you can see the gates into the complex - it's a beautiful building. And free! But they had random construction going on all through the back.

Here I am at the prime meridian of the world!! I was seriously looking like a midget that day.

Good ole LA.

They have loads of cities from all over the world listed.

So after Andrew and I'd spent some time browsing book shops, and souvenir stores, and I found a hat that I looooooooooooooooooved, I was feeling all cheapskatey cuz the dollar was so dang poh against the pound. Ah dinna feel like payin' 10 buckaroos for it. So I tried one on and they didn't have a mirror and Andrew was kindly enough to take a pic of it on his camera phone so I could see what it looked like. I suppose I could have taken one with my camera too, but why didn't we think of that?

Anyway, two months later, after we'd both gotten back, he happened to still have it on his camera and he sent it to me!!


I never did get one. Blasted £4.99!

Stuff Around the River

Greenwich is pretty cool, it's a quaint little seaside place. It was gloomy and dreary on the day we went but I happen to like that kind of weather.

They have the big clipper ship Cutty Sark docked here.

You can also walk UNDER the river in this tunnel that they built. Here's the entrance/exit, and the other side pretty much looks exactly the same.

You go down this spiral set of staircases and then enter this thing like straight out of the movies. Don't know why, but it reminds me of Russian submarines. And yes, you can hear the sound of water dripping and it's all damp and clammy!


By the way, it is supremely uncomfortable what with the raucous reverb when you get school groups of children racing up and down the entire tunnel, screaming, and then scurrying all around the precarious spiral staircase. Brats.

We came out on the other side and here's the view:

You can see the Cutty Sark and the entrance on the other side to the right of that. It was a nice little park from where this picture was taken, with a handful of ... Billies! No, I mean Bobbies! You know, policemen ... standing around hanging out with a cruiser and its door open. I guess the crime isn't too bad there, docks or no docks.

Here's a link in case anybody is interested:

Greenwich Foot Tunnel .

I came to Greenwich to see THIS!!!!

Hahaha.

This was taken in Greenwich as well. It was on the way to the Royal Observatory, just outside the park. Hee. And I admit it, I'm totally juvenile. But I blame it on the Brits, because they just make it sooooo easy. They started it. (But we won the war, didn't we. Neener neener.)

Alright, Greenwich with Andrew!

So the Monday after I flew in to London in June - I think I orginally arrived on a Thursday and just spent the weekend chilling with the fam - I met this internet guy that I've spoken to for a few years. He was on an graduation present "Grand Tour of Europe" Kontiki tour and our dates in England coincided so we decided to meet! He'd been to Greenwich before and I thought it'd be cool to go.



Here we are after being utterly drenched in a random, depressing, torrential downpour. How British!! I had the superlight umbrella that I got at Peacock's in Crawley (my cousin and I both agreed that it really looked like another customer had accidentally left it there but they let me buy it at clearance anyway for like $3) and Andrew kept insisting he was fine and didn't neeeeed an umbrella or a hat or anything. The Observatory is in the back, and we are in one of the several long porticoes surrounding the Naval History Museum and a buncha other stuff, about half way to the river.

Yes, I know my legs look about 2ft long. Grrr. Also, this just might be last picture taken of ... that particular pair of socks, and that pair of nice, super-long-lasting, navy, suede sneaky-sneaks that I bought for $15 in Zurich in 1998. They got lost when British Airways lost my entire backpack/luggage/everything on the way to Amsterdam - only my first city on the continent on the entire 2-month trip. Argh!

So, at the end of our little day in Greenwich, we purchased hot Cornish pies to go (oops, don't I really mean takeaway?), from this nice little establishment:


I think we were looking for a nice dry place to eat, and never found one. So we totally ended up getting off the tube at some drizzling Godforsaken podunk deserted stop and eating at the seats there. I think the chicken mushroom one I had was very very nice! I'd go there again. No idea what's wrong with the guy up on the second (also sometimes know as first) floor upstairs, but maybe he's smelling the nasty garbage can parked in front.

The thing I found rather troubling was the fact that the first two shops I saw as we came out of the tube stop were Subway's and Ben and Jerry's. I didn't go to England to see AMERICA!!!!

London (Dairy) Air

Ok, so the title doesn't really make sense or have anything to do with anything but I can't get over reading a copy of a note a teacher once received, from a parent complaining about how this teacher shouldn't be teaching kids to sing a song about a "London derriere".

I say, blame the kids!! They ought to be able to hear the difference between the Dairy Air and good ole Danny Boy .

Anyway.

I only took a couple pictures as we came into Heathrow, but I think they turned out pretty decently. Thanks to Lil Grace for pointing out actual landmarks to me since I didn't have a clue!!



Here we have the Thames River and the big ole honkin' London Eye. To the right of the Eye, you can see all the train tracks leading to Waterloo Station, where in 2004 my sister and I took the chunnel to Paris.

Above is the Thames River with Tower bridge to the lower right. I got to see the bridge go up on my very very first day in London with my sister and cousin back in 2004! We also totally just bashed our way into the Alicia Keyes Wimbledon-sponsored? affiliated? concert, and it was pretty cool.

If anybody can point out any other notable landmarks, please do share!

I'm on a posting jag!

Europe 2006

Okeydokeys!! Here it is! My firrrrrrrst post about Eurrrrrrrope is finally here. The source of all blogging inspirations!

I'll start out small; this whole thing is a bit more complicated than I had anticipated, but I'm getting familiar with free photo hosting by Yahoo (love it) as well as vid hosting by youtube (whee).

From LA to London, all shiny-faced and bleary-eyed after the uncomfortable night's flight:

I sat with two nice young girls in the waaaaaaay back (like row 73 or something) soooo hot. Grace to my right was half English, entering her senior year in high school or something. Some kinda artsy private prep school in LA? She spends the summers in London/Liverpool visiting her father. Parents are split. Grace had the decided distinction of encouraging me to not move at all when she wanted to leave her window seat and go to the aisle, she actually stepped on the armrests and scampered over us. Haha.

On my left is Saija!! From Finland! Frickin' hilarious, this chick. And yes, those are blondo DREADS. And a pierced upper lip. I think she was 21. She was very friendly and talkative. Very pretty and eye-catching, too, I think. I knew she wasn't American when she first started speaking but for the life of me I couldn't place the accent. So I had to ask (ah, defeat of the ego). She was (finally) on her way home from a year as an au pair to the kids of ... I believe she said he was one of the conductors of the LA Philharmonic Orchestra. Wowee! Apparently they prefer to rotate au pairs every year and whilst shopping for the latest drudge, they wine and dine rather convincingly and do the whole thing. But while lil Saija was in the back of the plane with me, elated at finding STELLA ARTOIS, the entire REST of the family was ... yup, you guessed it, about 80 rows up in FREAKING FIRST CLASS. THE OUTRAGE!!!

:)

THEY had huge leather seats that reclined and a neon bar and a whole upstairs section of the plane with beds for the overnight flight and everything. Hm. I think she was a little bitter about that. She told me she was gonna tell all her friends about this little injustice. She also says the youngest son was nice (probably because he was ... um, young) but the older two girls were wicked, and not in the East Coast/Brit type of wicked way, either. Yeah, I'd totally love to get ragefully cursed out by skanky pre-teens while living in their parents' house. :/

She was happy to go back to Finland. She says she was studying theology as well but I don't think she claimed any particular one personally.

And thus will end my current stream-of-consciousness verbal diarrhea since I need to consult my famous friend Hillary on a better way of posting pictures rather than one. at. a. freaking. time. since that is all that I am currently able to do.

Venting with a vented venter

Sooooooo, I finally gave out the address to a grand total SECOND person now! Whee, initiation.

Now it's ...

time to complain about my stupid job!! Which, I admit, is patently horrible for a PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER to do, and to voice about their "chosen" profession, but ... well, gee, sometimes it's true.

What GETS me is how some people have these horrendously ANNOYING children that spend the day jumping around, putting their dirty greasy hands on me, and on my stuff, and other children, pushing other kids around, scribbling on the desk or floor or paper or shirt with pencil or crayon or spit or blood, talk and interrupt incessantly, crying and crowing for "help" with their work when they are just needy and refuse to do anything unless someone is standing over them supervising their every demanding move ... and ... THESE CHILDREN ARE STILL ALIVE!!

AAAAAUUUUGH!! I can't stand it sometimes. How can the parents stand it? How can they live like this with these hyperstimulating little people and not do something more PERmanent about it? Ugh.

So I have decided that I am HELLBENT on forming these rampaging little reputation-which-precedes-them hellions into stable, contributing, non-dysfunctional citizens of society at large. IT MUST BE DONE!

I just can't forget that 90% of the class is actually comprised of quite cute and bearable and decidedly wonderful individuals who come to school, try hard, and make me enjoy what I do.

Like another teacher that I work with said, "Teaching is the easiest job I've ever had." (Whoo, 182 teacher duty days per year!) But for me, teaching is the ONLY (full-time) (long-term) job that I have ever had. I don't know anything else.

But I do know that I am darned if I am going to move grade levels or classrooms or schools AGAIN (5 grade level changes in less than 7 years, people - along with 2 districts, 4 principals, 3 schools, 5 classrooms, major curriculum changes EVERY year - I have never ever ever taught with any modicum of consistency or stability, frekkinfrekkerferfrek'ssake, and I have definitely had MORE than my fair share of troubled, "special needs" (haha, P.C. terms strike again!) children.

And now it's in a classroom with no air conditioning and full sun on two sides since I have the corner classroom, and having moved all my stuff practically BY MYSELF a week and a half before the new school year started from the "Oh-didn't-you-already-know??-They-found-asbestos..." old classroom infested with 1) hordes of ants, 2) swarms of termites, 3) colonies of cockroaches, 4) corners full of spiders, and 5) random crickets interrupting my painstakingly crafted lessons. On writing paragraphs. In kindergarten. Because this what is required of me whether I agree with it or not. Gah, poor 4-year-old kindergarteners who don't know how to hold a pencil, much less tie their shoelaces in less than 20 minutes, and have never ever held a pair of scissors before, and when asked to find their nametag on a desk can't, and can't even tell you their names because mom just calls them "son." Haha, not even kidding. Do you THINK I could MAKE this stuff UP??? *cue consternation*

But at least I'm not still trying to teach algebra to first graders! Just to second graders!! Tres fun, teaching parts of speech and sentence diagramming to 7-year-olds.

Pics of Europe (the REAL fun stuff) comes next time. :)

Hello to myself.

After years of subtle and overt suggestive therapy by friends, acquaintances, and countrymen, I finally caved and started this blog - a black hole of internet time.

Hillary inspires me because she posts pictures.

This is the first year I've seriously considered bloggerating myself - thank you, Euro 2006.

But now I will have to divide my time between posting here and at my wonderful scrimp'er-pinch'er-super-save'er site with the fellow Targeteers. Hm, I think the world is big enough for both.

And maybe I WILL throw in some of the cute things kids say, since I hear it every day.

Enjoy.