Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Friday's Chat (12-08-06)

PEOPLE WITH PETS

Ok, here's my weekend update. I'm dogsitting for Mom since she's out of town, and the wretched Lab will not go to bed. Is this common? I've pet-sat for Mom before, but this is a new thing to me. I mean, I lived with the beast for 8 years! I can no longer just drag him back into the guest room to go to sleep with me. He just blinks and looks at me like, "Are you kidding?" and crawls underneath the dining room table. So here I am at 2:20am ready for an exhilerating night's sleep on the couch since he's kind of a trouble-maker and can't be left to his own devices.

Taking advantage of Friday's chat to say this:

I'm officially writing it down here so that I can't ignore it: I'm officially delurking, officially getting back to reading and writing L&C fanfic on a regular basis, officially getting back to chatting on IRC at least now and again, if not every night, and I'm officially stopping to think of work as my life.

My life isn't work, and work isn't my life, and I haven't been writing much in the past 2 years, which I miss very much. I'm currently off work for a case of extreme stress (due to working way too hard, precisely) and before I go back to work, I need to make sure I won't go back to the same rhythm. So I'm getting back to my old hobbies.

So I thought that posting my official come-back here might help me keep up with my new resolution, which is to get back to posting here, reading, writing, making videos and fanfic trailers, and generally taking part in the fandom beyond coordinating the Kerth Awards once a year.

I'm counting on all of you to help me!

Kaethel (determined!)

YAY!!! Kae is back!!!

I've missed seeing you on here.

Rach

Gah! Yeah, it's wind chill factor, apparently. I just wrote it the way I thought they were saying it. on TV. That's what you get when you have French ears. *lol*

Jen - I hope you managed to get a little bit of sleep!!

And wow! Kaethel, glad to hear you're coming back. YAY!!

Thanks, Lara and Rach! And just wanted to add, ROTFL at the cat pictures!

Kaethel

Welcome back, K. You'll find we're just as barmy as ever.

Yvonne

Thanks, Woody! Keep your ears ready in the next couple weeks--I plan to record the last 4 (of mine, plus maybe start on other peoples') this weekend, so that means Paul will probably have them posted a week or two afterward.

Glad you're coming back, Kaethel!

I've told you before about some of the ways that I get 8th graders interested in US History. So since some of you thought my projects sounded cool, I'll tell you what I did this week. My students are learning about the formation of the two-party political system and the issues that split the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. I combined classes with another 8th grade Social Studies teacher and had the kids learn about one of the issues from one of the political perspectives. Each group had to create a speech, newspaper editorial, and political cartoon about it. They could insult their political opponents, but only with "classy insults" - I made them look up Shakespearian insults on the internet. They also had to create posters and stickers for a campaign. Yesterday, we recreated the Election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. After the speeches, they got to try and bribe people to vote for their party using cupcakes and candy (my subtle dig at political corruption, plus it makes the activity extra fun!). The kids loved it! All over campus yesterday, all day long, the kids were chanting "Jefferson!" and "Adams!" and talking about the election. Even kids who usually just take a zero on every assignment did their work for this one. I videotaped the speeches. If you're interested, I pulled out a two-minute clip of one girl's speech, and the crowd reaction. If you want to see a really bad, far away image of me, at the end as they pan over the crowd, I'm the woman in the black shirt and red pants (our school colors!). Enjoy! Susan

Election of 1800

P.S. Yes, of course, I ran the whole thing in my 5 inch heels!

Very good work.

I took a speech clas my senior year(last year) in high school, and a lot of the speeches weren't as good as that. Keep it up.

Jen, just a suggestion about the dog situation - what about bribery? A dog biscuit or treat in hand might lead him to follow you into the bedroom.

Irene

Ok how silly is this. He doesn't respond to bribery! He's far too crafty for his dog self. He just *knows* that if I'm going to bribe him, he has to do something he doesn't want to do. I actually have to take him for a walk or a ride in the car just to get him on a leash when I put him in the kitchen to go out of the house. I have to plot. against. him. Fortunately, my big laugh in all of this is muahaha, I no longer live here, and I'm only visiting for two non consecutive weeks. The inner workings of Mom's dog are...unbelievable...

Ok, it's Sunday afternoon, and I've been doing lots of stuff. Let's see how it compares to the "agenda" I posted on Friday, shall we?

• Friday
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• Balance the checkbook - Check
• Read/write more fanfic - Check . . . wrote one scene
• See if friends want to go bowling - It was so cold, I didn't want to even THINK about going anywhere.
• If they do, then call the guy who gave me his number at the election to see if he wants to go, and write some more of PPKM while I wait for the alley to have open lanes. If not, then just write. - Since I didn't call the friends, I kind of chickened out on calling the guy, since I barely know him and wouldn't be really comfortable just hanging out with only him until I'd gotten to know him better.
• Go bowling (again, if the friends want to) - Again, no-go, 'cause of the cold.

[*]Saturday

• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Christmas shopping - Check - all first gifts bought and wrapped, plus one second gift. Must shop again on the 23rd
• Reading/Writing - Check - I did some reading yesterday, including a re-read of CC Aiken's "Un" trilogy.
• Gift wrapping - Check
• Possible catch-up playing on Smallville (if my LimeWire downloads have finished before then) - Check - I'm now caught up through the end of season 5. Just waiting for what's there of season 6 to download.
• Gift bag giving - I went shopping, but once that was done and I'd wrapped the gifts, I got caught up in Smallville since I was watching an episode while I wrapped.
• Possible audiofic recording - See below.

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[*]Sunday

• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Church 9-Noon - Check - Although I only went from 11-12.
• Meeting 7:30-9am - Missed this, because I was up until 4 this morning, watching Smallville because I couldn't sleep, so I didn't get up until 10.
• Lunch - Not hungry yet.
• Reading/Writing - Don't have anything to read, but I may write some more later.
• More possible audiofic recording - I'm a little leery about doing this right now, since the same drive I keep my audiofics on is the drive that I'm currently downloading Smallville onto. I don't want to interfere with that and possibly screw up the video files.
• More possible catching-up on Smallville - As soon as "Zod" downloads, and possibly "Sneeze" ("Wither" has already finished), then I'm going to watch them.

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So, counting up the checks versus the total . . .

There are six checks, and a total of 17 things to do, although some of them are duplicates, so I guess that's about halfway through my to-do list. That's usually how I end up on the weekends--half-way done.

The highlight of my weekend:

My almost-14-year-old brother broke his thumb yesterday...

(wait for it)

...in the process of throwing a marshmallow at our preacher.

Now tell me that's not funny!

No, that's not funny.

It's friggin' HILARIOUS!

Here, it finally climbed back into the 40's. Went outside with the temp at 44 and thought it was positively warm. Didn't even bother with a jacket. It's amazing how your body adjusts to the temperature.40 would be really cold in the summer while it feels nice and toasty now.