Final grades are in and summer's begun, and to celebrate both, I've decided to do the following today:
1. Get a new blog template. I liked the old one, but variety is the spice of life and all that, and this one's cool-looking. That's right: I have once again used maps for decor despite having a bad sense of geography and not even that much desire to travel. But this summer will contain an above-average amount of travel for me, so besides that I just like it, it also seems kind of fitting.
2. Take a nap sometime before the vestry meeting this evening. Despite how much potential napping-time I've just blown on this entry, I'm still hoping for this one, because no matter how many or few students I have to grade, I always procrastinate on getting it done and end up having to finish said grading on too little sleep.
3. Buy an ant trap. Because apparently a colony of tiny ants likes my room. Including my bed. Ew.
Also, I'd like to make some chicken stock, and later some vegetable stock, and later some chickpea-and-leek soup, but that's going to have to happen tomorrow or something.
Aaand that's your mid-May report. But I'll try to be more regular now that I don't have 234902934 things to do. Although soon I'll have 234902934 other things to do.
5.09.2011
Two Things, for No Good Reason, Given that I Should be Grading
1. Tonight, after many weeks of ducking the game as everybody else took part in it, I decided to join in Capture the Flag with Ife and the youth group kids in the church sanctuary. And, in fact, thanks to a mad dash at a ripe moment, I was able to seize the opposing team's "flag" (which I believe was a jacket or sweatshirt). All I needed was an epic getaway back to our side to secure our win, but opposing player M. was coming right for me. In the midst of his approach and my teammate S. (in jail)'s cry for me to tag her (that would get her back into the game), I made a quick decision to try to evade M. via a hop onto a raised-up area of the altar (about the size and depth of a kiddie pool, but more square), from whence I planned to, after running across it, hop back down into a sort of aisle leading to the side. Or at least I think that was my plan. Either way, it was foiled, because in the relatively-low light and probably some shadows or something, I failed to recognize that the edge of the raised area was a little bit closer and higher than I thought.
You can guess what happened: still at a run, I tripped over it, fell heavily over the side (more or less into the aisle I'd planned to hop into), and became Exhibits A (bruised, scraped, and soon bleeding left shin), B (bruised, scraped, and soon bleeding right shin), C (scraped-and-soon-bleeding right foot), D (bruised left pinky and adjoining knuckle), and E (bruised right index-finger knuckle) as to why We Do Not Run on the Altar, a rule that at one point had been in place for some time, although I think it'd since been relaxed, for whatever reasons, probably none of which make much sense in retrospect.
Ife was apologetic and sympathetic; the kids, less fazed, joined him in watching part of the proceedings as I dabbed off blood with a paper towel, rubbed Neosporin in, and applied largely ill-fitting first-aid-kit bandages. Then, seeing that I was alive and essentially still mobile, the middle-schoolers clomped back upstairs to play the next round of the game. As Ife wryly told Carrie later about the injuries, "That's how we roll in youth group."
2. You all remember last Monday, which besides being noteworthy for another reason was also my twenty-sixth birthday. That evening, I got a couple of texts from my brother:
[br0:] Happy birthday! i hope u had a good day
[Me:] Thanks! It was pretty good.
[br0:] They killed osama bin laden for you
...I did reply, though I couldn't come up with anything better than, "Well, I knew the Navy Seals admired me from afar, but I never expected anything that elaborate."
And yeah, I know: it's supposed to be SEALs.
So there you go: that's some of my life these days, and I should probably get through another paper before going to bed.
You can guess what happened: still at a run, I tripped over it, fell heavily over the side (more or less into the aisle I'd planned to hop into), and became Exhibits A (bruised, scraped, and soon bleeding left shin), B (bruised, scraped, and soon bleeding right shin), C (scraped-and-soon-bleeding right foot), D (bruised left pinky and adjoining knuckle), and E (bruised right index-finger knuckle) as to why We Do Not Run on the Altar, a rule that at one point had been in place for some time, although I think it'd since been relaxed, for whatever reasons, probably none of which make much sense in retrospect.
Ife was apologetic and sympathetic; the kids, less fazed, joined him in watching part of the proceedings as I dabbed off blood with a paper towel, rubbed Neosporin in, and applied largely ill-fitting first-aid-kit bandages. Then, seeing that I was alive and essentially still mobile, the middle-schoolers clomped back upstairs to play the next round of the game. As Ife wryly told Carrie later about the injuries, "That's how we roll in youth group."
2. You all remember last Monday, which besides being noteworthy for another reason was also my twenty-sixth birthday. That evening, I got a couple of texts from my brother:
[br0:] Happy birthday! i hope u had a good day
[Me:] Thanks! It was pretty good.
[br0:] They killed osama bin laden for you
...I did reply, though I couldn't come up with anything better than, "Well, I knew the Navy Seals admired me from afar, but I never expected anything that elaborate."
And yeah, I know: it's supposed to be SEALs.
So there you go: that's some of my life these days, and I should probably get through another paper before going to bed.